


all the ashes

by neonheartbeat



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Armitage Hux is Good, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Demiromantic Rey, Demisexuality, F/M, Gen, Horror, Illusions, Look We All Know You're Not Here For The Plot But For The Monsterfucking, Magic, Marriage of Convenience, New York City, Politics, Rags to Riches, Rey & Rose Tico Friendship, Reylo Monster Week, Shapeshifting, Social Media, Socialism, Weird Plot Shit, just getting ahead of the curve HUH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23785951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/neonheartbeat
Summary: Rey Keyner, of Brooklyn, living in a terrible apartment and desperate to escape, posts a Craiglist ad as a half-joke, seeking a marriage of convenience to just get the hell out of the country. When it's unexpectedly answered by a mysterious Romanian count, her life completely turns on its head, and everything she thought she knew to be true goes crashing out the window.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Rey, Armitage Hux & Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn/Rose Tico, Kylo Ren/Rey, Poe Dameron & Finn, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1000
Kudos: 1193
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. In Which A Mysterious Letter Arrives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Violetwilson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetwilson/gifts).



> Tags will be updated as chapters are posted: as always, read them with each new update! Enormous love to Violet, who created the fake Craiglist post and allowed my brain to run amok. 
> 
> This is a lot less put-together plotwise than most of my works, generally because my schedule has been changed yet again and I am Stressing Out. Please forgive me. I beg you.

Rey sat back, viewing her Craiglist post with satisfaction and just a little bit of nervousness as she chewed her thumbnail. Beebee, in all her fluffy orange-and-white glory, wove her way around her dangling right ankle, meowing in her high-pitched chirps, and Rey looked down, grinning. “Hello-o-o,” she sang, reaching down to scratch her cat on the head. Beebee purred and shut her eyes, her ears going almost flat as Rey’s fingertips scrubbed her flat forehead. “Does baby Beebee want a pet? Oooh, do you want a pet?”

Her eye fell on the Bernie 2020 poster on her apartment wall and she sighed, leaning back as Beebee leaped up and began to knead her paws into her old T-shirt’s middle. _Fucking DNC._ First there was that goddamn pandemic, then the nomination of yet another old creepy white man to the only political party worth a damn. Her drafted Facebook status explaining election splitting and third party voting was still in the drafts on another tab in her laptop, and she groaned, wondering if it was even worth it to finish and click post. _As if anyone will listen,_ she thought, standing and depositing Beebee to the ratty carpet.

Rey looked around. Four walls, a tiny kitchenette, threadbare carpeting, a mattress on the floor with fairy lights strung up over it: New York was absurdly expensive, so this whole room cost her $1200 a month, and she was absolutely sick of it. Five hundred square feet? Criminal. Her landlord, Plutt, should be arrested. _You’ll be the first to go in the revolution,_ she thought angrily, remembering how he’d charged her $100 for repairing a burst pipe above her own ceiling. 

The post had been half a joke, brought up last night over IPAs and pretzels with Rose and Poe and Finn. “You know, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just get married to someone overseas and get the hell out,” Poe had said, gulping down beer. He always looked exhausted these days: he was still working twelve hour shifts at the hospital, driving ambulances. Rey had met him while handing out PPE one morning in Queens, and they’d realized they had a mutual friend in Rose, a mechanic in Brooklyn who had landed a contract fixing medical vehicles at Queen’s Hospital Center with her boyfriend Finn, who worked sanitation when he wasn’t canvassing for Bernie with Rey— they’d known each other since college.

“Oh, shit,” Rose had said, laughing. “I don’t think you’d like that, huh, Finn?”

Finn had choked on his beer. “Maybe we could find someone who wouldn’t mind a poly marriage,” he’d joked, and Rey had snorted.

“How would you even find someone to marry overseas?” she’d asked. “They might be a serial killer.”

“Facebook ad? Craigslist post?” Poe had grinned. “You should do it for kicks.”

“Oh, ‘cause I’m single?” 

“No, ‘cause it’d be funny. Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

So that was how she’d agreed, and then found herself typing up that post Monday morning, so fast that she’d misspelled “convenience” the first time around, because hey, on the very slim chance that it worked, she would be able to get the hell out of the nightmare that America was shaping up to be in the next four years. 

And sure, there was something to be said about her being able to use her white privilege to possibly fuck off to some European country while the U.S.A went to hell in a handbasket, but she was also kind of… weaponizing her femininity, wasn’t she? Or maybe not, since she didn’t include photos. _Ugh._ She rubbed her eyes and checked her phone. Ten minutes until her shift at the bodega started, and once that was over at four it was pizza delivery on her bike until nine at night. Might as well get started. Rey fed Beebee, who purred around her ankles and rushed for the food, before shoving her sneakers on and heading out the door.

* * *

Rey was late paying the rent on Tuesday and had to climb up the fire escape to get past Plutt, who was known to wait in the lobby of the building like an angry bull for tenants who were over a day late paying. The sole on her left sneaker peeled off on Wednesday, and she had to fix it with duct tape. On Thursday, her Civic wouldn’t start, and the chain of her bike fell off on a busy street in Crown Heights, so she had to stop and fix it, which meant she was late for deliveries, which meant no tip and an angry customer. Friday brought rain, and she spent her evening half soaked, deluged by passing trucks that splashed huge waves of dirty water up over her as she pedaled furiously to an address in Brownsville, and Saturday meant working all morning in the shop with Rose, being paid under the table in cash only. 

By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, Rey was covered in grease and her back ached, but the thick roll of twenties the shop owner, Amilyn, handed her was good and heavy in her pocket, and she didn’t have to pay taxes on it, which was even better. So it was back to the train and over into Brooklyn again, biking on the surface streets back to her building, and locking her bike up in storage before walking back out into the bare little lobby. Out of force of habit, she went to her mailbox, like she did every day. Usually there were one or two bills, or a cookie-cutter thank you card from a campaign manager, but today there was only one letter, in a thick envelope of paper that made her think of wedding invitations: creamy, smooth, expensive. Rey frowned and turned it over: it had been hand-addressed in thin, delicate, spidery script that was almost too perfect to be real, but that was her name in painstaking detail: 

**_Miss Rey Keyner_ **

**_510 Lafayette Avenue, Unit 5_ **

**_New York City, New York 11205_ **

**_United States of America_ **

“What the fuck,” she said aloud, baffled as she flipped it over again. It was sealed, actually sealed with real black wax (she checked, scraping it with her thumbnail) and stamped down with some elaborate crest she couldn’t make out in the slightest. There was no return address, but the stamp was red, and read POSTA ROMANA underneath, in tiny white letters. She became suddenly very aware that her hands were getting grease everywhere on the paper, and held it between her thumb and index finger delicately as she slung her bag over her shoulder and marched up the stairs to her floor, because the elevator was still broken.

She’d gotten mail like this before, but it was usually junk mail disguised to look like something fancy, not… whatever this was. _I’ll open it to see what it is, and then I’ll toss it._ Probably one of those puzzle room “invitation” things, although she was pretty sure escape rooms didn’t use vellum in their junk mail. Who could afford that?

Rey got inside her apartment, locked the door, fed Beebee, and washed her hands before approaching the mysterious letter like it was a bomb. Carefully, she slid a blunt knife under the wax, wiggling it to remove the wax without breaking it— she wanted a better look at that seal. Opened, the envelope smelled like… like an antique shop, that soft, papery scent of old smoky books, and she stood there for a minute just sniffing it before slipping out the paper inside and unfolding it, reading the letter and setting aside an assortment of confusing slips of paper inside it to read after.

**_To Whom It May Concern:_ **

**_Consider this a response to the advertisement regarding a marriage of convenience: I accept. You may consider all demands set forth to be fulfilled absolutely. The automobile will not be necessary to bring, but you are welcome, of course, to bring the cat._ **

**_Enclosed, you will find a plane ticket to Bucharest from New York City, departing John F. Kennedy International at seven in the morning on April the thirtieth of this year, via British Airways, first class. There is a layover at Heathrow Airport of an hour and a half. You will then depart Heathrow and fly to Bucharest. Upon arrival in Bucharest, you will take the train north to Piatra Neamț, a six and a half hour journey. The ticket is enclosed. At the station in Piatra Neamț you will be met by a driver, who will bring you to me._ **

**_I am eager to greet you, and can only express an apology that I cannot meet you myself at the station. As a token of my sincerity, please open the smaller envelope: it is not cursed, but it is a ring that I hope you will accept regardless._ **

**_Conte V. Solovei_ **

“What the _fuck_ ,” she said, extremely loudly, and picked up the other envelope with fingers shaking so badly she could barely hold it. She tore it open and tapped it into her hands, and out came a ring: a ring with a— it had to be a ruby, no other stone could be that bright red— set flush into a gold band, two little diamonds glinting on either side. She snatched up the other slips: two first-class plane tickets for two legs of a trip to Bucharest and a pre-paid train pass. _It’s a joke,_ she thought, panic rising in her chest. _Someone’s playing a fucking prank on me._

Rey stormed over and snatched up her phone, dialing Poe’s number: she knew he was working, but a text would not properly convey the magnitude of how _pissed_ she was at him. It rang, and rang, and went to voicemail. She waited for the beep and took a huge breath. “Hey, asswipe. I guess you think you’re really fucking funny, sending me a fake letter with no return address pretending to be some— some Romanian count or something, but it’s not fucking funny at all, and I’m over here _freaking out_. Where the hell did you find this ring? A pawnshop? Call me back as soon as you get this so I can cuss you out in person. Bye.”

She hung up and dialed Rose, then, who she knew was off work. It rang once before it was picked up. _“Rey? What’s up? Did you leave something at the shop?”_

“Did you know about this?” Rey asked, pacing in her tiny kitchen.

_“Know about what? What? What are you—”_

“This letter! This fucking letter! I got this thing in the mail, saying it was an answer to my stupid Craigslist post. I didn’t put my address _anywhere_ online, and you, Finn, and Poe are the only people who know both where I live and that I made the post anyway—”

 _“W_ _hoa, whoa. Calm down. What? You got a letter in the mail?”_

“Yes! With— with first class plane tickets. Plane tickets to _Bucharest!_ And… and a bus pass to some city I’ve never heard of…” She squinted back at the letter. “Pi-a-tra… Nee-amt? Nemt? I have no idea how to pronounce it, there’s a squiggle under the T and I didn’t take linguistics—”

 _“Piatra Neamț,”_ said Rose authoritatively, pronouncing it “namt”. “ _Oldest inhabited area in Romania, used to be part of Moldavia. They talked about it in my archaeology classes— wait, are you saying someone sent you plane tickets?”_

“I— I think they’re fake,” said Rey, doubtful suddenly. “I mean, who would waste money on real first class plane tickets to Bucharest for a prank?” 

_“Well, Jesus, look them up online! See if the flight is real. What else was in there?”_ Rose sounded just as mystified as Rey felt.

“Um,” said Rey, scrambling for her laptop. “Uh, the tickets, the bus pass, a letter, and— and a ring.”

_“A what?”_

“A ring! Like a gold ring, um, with what I think is a ruby in the band, kind of… bezel set. With a couple of diamonds. It looks…” Rey squinted down at it. “Like… really old. There are Roman numerals on the inside of the band. I didn’t see those at first. MCCCLXIV?”

_“Holy shit. What if this guy is real? What did the letter say?”_

Rey sighed. “How could he be real, Rose? How would someone in Romania have gotten my mailing address?” Rey typed in British Airways’ address into the search bar of Google Chrome and waited for her painfully slow Wi-Fi to kick in. “And the letter just said that, um, he accepted, that I didn’t need to bring my car, that I was welcome to bring Beebee, explaining the tickets, and saying I was gonna be picked up at the station in Piatra and taken to his place and that he was ‘eager to greet me’. It’s written like some super-formal, old timey letter.” The website came up and she typed the confirmation number from the tickets in, then clicked enter.

_“I’m gonna text Finn and ask if he knows anything.”_

“Wait,” said Rey, frowning at her laptop. Her gut sank. “Rose. _Rose._ Those tickets are real. The flight’s real. I… I have a seat in freaking _first class_ , I typed in the confirmation number…” Frantically, she started to scroll. “Holy shit. I— I get a menu for my food, they want me to pick my meal. This is like… this is like a restaurant. Breakfast, afternoon tea, dinner… what the _hell_ is going on?”

 _“I’m going to text Finn right now. I swear. I’ll call you back.”_ The line went dead, and Rey found herself gaping at the screen of her computer.

Her phone buzzed, and she picked it up. “What?” she asked.

Poe said, _“What the hell was that voicemail?”_

She clutched the phone. “Oh, my god. Poe. Tell me you didn’t send a weird letter to my house with a ring and a bunch of plane tickets.”

He sounded genuinely baffled. _“What? Why would I do that? Plane tickets? You think I got plane ticket money?”_

“Oh, my God,” said Rey, half-hyperventilating. “Oh, my God, holy shit, shit, shit. It’s real?”

_“Are you having a panic attack? Do I need to send someone over?”_

“No, no— I just, remember that thing about that Craigslist post? Someone sent me a letter accepting but I don’t know how he got my address or anything and I— I think I need someone to come and just look at this, okay, so I know I’m not hallucinating the whole thing.” Rey dragged a hand through her hair. “Just. When you get off work. Or—”

 _“I'm off in three hours. I’m gonna text Rose and have her drop by and see you, okay? Breathe slowly. I’m sure there’s an explanation. There’s an explanation for everything.”_ Poe’s voice was reassuring and calm, and Rey forced herself to slow down and think. _“Just set it aside and make yourself some green tea or something. Okay?”_

“Okay,” she said, faintly, and he hung up, leaving her alone in her apartment while Beebee chirped at her ankles.

* * *

Rey had never in her life had anyone who was eager to meet her.

Foster homes, the system, a long line of case workers: Rey didn’t even know her real birthday, because the certificate she’d been issued was made up by a social worker when she’d been found at age three trying to eat out of a dumpster in Hell’s Kitchen, and all she’d known how to say was her own name. A dentist had confirmed her approximate age, but her body had always been underfed and small and processed food weirdly due to malnutrition at an early age— she’d tried so hard to go vegan when she was fifteen and wound up fainting from low iron, and the supplements people normally took to make up for something like that just gave her horrible heartburn (that was, even when her foster parents could afford them) and she’d felt so guilty that she’d cried for a day.

Her last name wasn’t even her real last name: a well-meaning social services clerk in Brooklyn had decided on _Keyner_ , and even though it was way better than “Jane Doe” or “Smith”, she still felt like it wasn’t quite hers. At least her life trapped in the shit excuses for social programs America had to offer had made her an ardent democratic socialist: there was always room for improvement, and she wanted so badly to change every system she’d ever been trapped in, every contradicting policy and loophole and crack that kids fell through, so make people _safe_ so they could feel secure in their lives and have time to do things they loved doing instead of working their fingers to the bone for ninety years just to survive. 

She didn’t know anything about Romania. She didn’t know anything about their politics. The thirtieth was a week away.

_What the hell have I gotten myself into?_

* * *

“So he has to be real, and if he’s real,” said Rose for what seemed like the billionth time, pacing in her apartment, “he probably has money, and you’ll probably be set. These tickets were _not_ cheap, Rey.”

Rey drew her knees to her chest. “What if he’s a total creep? What if he’s like the guy on 90 Day Fiance who looked like a garden gnome and made his girlfriend shave her legs?”

Rose groaned. “Oh, my god. You have asked ‘what if he’s a serial killer’, ‘what if he’s going to sex traffick me to Russia’ and ‘what if he’s some twelve year old who thinks he’s funny because he saw my IP address and found my name?’. Rey. We went over this. We’ll buy you an international SIM card and you can text us if it goes sideways and you can go to the embassy in Bucharest. They’ll help you.”

“Okay,” said Rey, grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes. It was eight at night. “He did say he was fine with all the terms. Meaning a marriage of convenience. So if I think he’s gross, at least I don’t have to bang him. Do you think he’s super old?”

Rose shrugged, looking at the letter again. “Maybe? I don’t know. He writes like he is.”

“Do you think he’s gonna get mad that I’m not a virgin?” Rey said, dropping her hands into her lap. “I mean, if he’s old, maybe, but if we’re never gonna have sex, maybe not. I don’t know what the Romanian, uh, attitudes about that kind of thing are.”

“If he does, tough shit.” Rose leaned over the open laptop, reading. “Okay, so it looks like you need… your birth certificate… and you have to present a statement saying you’re not married, which can be issued by New York’s health department… and a health certification from the Romanian country you plan to get married in. Okay. So scratch that last one, you can get it when you get there.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Rey muttered. “When are Poe and Finn going to get here?”

“Soon. They were stopping for snacks.” Rose’s eyes were glued to the screen. “You should call out tomorrow and go to the King’s County Health Department for that statement. You only have a week and change to get on that plane, and you know how the bureaucracy likes to drag shit out.”

“Right.” Rey scanned the letter again and wrote down GO TO KCHD on a Post-It, tacking it to her mini-fridge. “Do I need to get a visa? I do, right?”

Rose frowned. “Yes… but not on entry, you can apply for it later. Looks like you just need one if you’re staying longer than ninety days, so I guess if it doesn’t work out, you can just come home before then. You know. Like on ‘90 Day Fiance’.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Rey ran to get it. Poe and Finn shouldered in, bearing bags of bodega snacks and a couple of six-packs. “Hey! Sorry, they were out of Honeybuns,” said Finn, dumping the bags on the floor and flopping down. “You want a bag of Cheez Doodles?”

“Did you get butter cookies?” Rey asked, popping open the bag. 

“Yeah, all in here,” said Poe, dumping the other plastic sack out. “So what’s the verdict on Count Dracula?”

“It’s _Conte_ in Romanian, and he’s not Dracula, he’s a perfectly normal person,” said Rose sternly. “And his name is, um, Solovei.”

“His last name is Solovei,” Rey corrected, feeling extremely lightheaded. “His first name.. I don’t know what it is, but it starts with a V.”

“Oh, great. At least we know his surname. Did you Google him?” Poe popped a Cheez Doodle into his mouth and chewed.

“Tried that,” said Rey. “Nothing. At least the town I’m going to looks pretty.”

“So you’re going?” asked Finn, a butter cookie halfway to his mouth. “Seriously?”

“I mean, where else am I going to get the chance to go to Europe for free?” she said evasively, fumbling for a bottle opener in a drawer. “Free flight, free trip to ‘the most picturesque city in Romania’ and maybe some old aristocrat’s money. And Romania has universal healthcare, so.” Rey shrugged. “If I hate it, obviously I’ll come straight home.”

“You can stay with me if your landlord rents the place out from under you,” said Rose. “Paige and I have a futon. It’ll be fun.”

Rey scrolled through more photo galleries of Romania: architecture, gorgeous rivers, forests, mountains, castles. “Yeah,” she said, looking up with an effort. It was so pretty, really, and this was… it was going to be an adventure, regardless of anything else that happened. “Yes. Okay. I should pack or something. Maybe tomorrow. I have to get the car looked at, and I have to go to the health department.”

“Meanwhile, let’s make plans about how you’re totally going to smuggle all this guy’s money out of the country and send it to us,” teased Finn. 

Rose rolled her eyes. “You do realize there’s no _real_ nobility in Romania anymore, right? I think they all got driven out when the Communist Party came to power. This guy has money, like, first class flight money, but not, like, _money_ money. Maybe an old castle somewhere.”

“That’s more money than I have,” Rey said, laughing, and took a sip of beer. “Okay, deal. If he’s an asshole, I steal his checkbook and make a run for the US embassy, and we’ll split the cash.”


	2. In Which Rey Tries Romanian McDonald's And Maybe Sees A Ghost

Rey got off the plane in Bucharest on the second of May, clutching her biggest suitcase, her carry-on, and Beebee in a cage, feeling like she’d just experienced a different plane of existence. She’d never been on a plane before, and after Poe had dropped her off at JFK and she’d gotten on the plane, the stewardesses had all been so nice and sweet and made sure she had blankets and whatever she wanted. Flying first class was _amazing._ The food had been incredible, too, and she thought that maybe she could get used to something like that for the rest of her life. 

Now, though, there was the question of finding the train to Piatra, and all the signs were in Romanian. Rey frowned on her way out of the airport, looking around in all directions, and as far as she could tell from her phone (thank God for international SIM cards, she could read Google Maps) she had to take a bus south to the train terminal, and from there take the train.

_ No problem. You take a bus all the time in Brooklyn. How different can it be?  _

A few halting words in bad Romanian and a quick double check of the tickets, and she was on a bus to downtown Bucharest. She pressed her face to the window, watching in excitement as they drove into the city, appreciating the eclectic mix of nineteenth century domes and pillars next to huge, flat Communist concrete edifices and modern glass and steel towers.  _ I didn’t know it was so pretty, _ she thought, dazzled by a charming Art Nouveau building that Google Maps said was a museum. She almost wished she could spend a week in Bucharest, putting her art history degree to good use for once, but the train was leaving right when she’d get to the station, so there was no time to dawdle.  _ Maybe Count Whoever will take me down here for a weekend or something _ . 

Forty minutes later, she was getting off at what the signs said was Gara de Nord Metro Station, and she managed to find her platform after double-checking at least five times. It was noon, and the train didn’t leave until two, so she found a currency exchange counter and got about fifty  _ lei _ for ten bucks to buy a coffee and a sandwich. She sat on a bench and ate, texting Rose to let her know she’d reached the station— sure, it was probably four in the morning or something back home, but she’d appreciate the text when she woke up. Beebee meowed piteously, and she bent to give her poor stressed cat some more dry food and water.

After that, she still had an hour, so she spent time going through her phone and deleting stupid photos and old memes: she’d need the storage space if she wanted to get any good pictures of this adventure. She wished she looked like an Instagram traveler— her clean white tee, navy leggings, and Toms were fine for the airport, but a city like this needed, like, a long floral dress and a big hat and shades. Maybe strappy heels, and someone to take oversaturated photos of her in front of a Gothic Revival style building with a stupid caption.

She’d never had a boyfriend to do anything like that for her, and now she wasn’t even going to have a real husband— not a husband you slept with, anyway, because who the hell was so excited to find a wife who didn’t want to sleep with him? Rey couldn’t picture herself  _ wanting _ to sleep with a guy like that.  _ It’s fine, _ she thought, kicking her feet back and forth.  _ Totally fine.  _ Would they be just friends? Or not friends at all? Would she hate him? Would he not like _her?_

Romance had never been a huge part of her sex life, either: she didn’t care for hugs or hand-holding or any of that gooey stuff. She didn’t even really find it appealing, either in the abstract concept or the real life application, and has felt pretty comfortable describing herself as aromantic ever since she'd come across the concept online. When it came down to it, sex was just… an itch that needed to be scratched, and she liked doing it with other people, sure, but guys had a hard time listening to what she wanted, and by this point she’d given up trying to communicate to dudes who just wanted to get their cocks wet, so she mostly scratched the itch herself. Twenty-five, never been in a real relationship, and now she was halfway across the world waiting for a train to take her to some guy she’d never met so she could get a marriage of convenience. 

_ Definitely not the craziest thing I’ve ever done. There was that time I went dumpster diving behind that Manhattan boutique and snatched those Louis Vuitton bags, then got chased by a cop six blocks. And that time I stumbled into that homeless guy book club in that abandoned school in the Bronx. Rey _ cheered up a little and sipped her coffee.  _ I can get through anything. I don’t even speak Romanian and here I am, having an adventure. Look at me. What could go wrong? _

* * *

The train ride lasted seven hours. Rey fell asleep, head against the window, and jolted to wakefulness when the train stopped in Bačau. She was so disoriented that she thought for a second she was back on the 3 train through Brooklyn and had missed her stop. It was dark, and overcast, and chilly since the sun had long gone down: she pulled a sweater out of her bag and shrugged it on, sleepily buying a couple of snacks at the station and using the toilet and changing Beebee’s box lining before getting back on and huddling into her seat. 

There was no going back to sleep after that, though, and she kept her eyes glued to the outside as the sky darkened, the sun went down, and mountains and forests began to materialize around the tracks. A shiver went down her spine. What if nobody was waiting for her at the station? What if it had been a prank? She pulled the letter, by now very folded and over-folded, from her backpack and opened it again, peering at the script.  _ You will be met by a driver… I am eager to meet you.  _ Rey pulled the ring out of her back pocket and eyed it, then slipped it onto her left ring finger, holding it up and watching the ruby wink in the setting. “Anyone who sends  _ that  _ has to be legit,” she muttered to herself.

A little cough off to her left brought her attention to the fact that someone was watching her. She turned her head and saw a man, maybe in his sixties, wearing a tweed blazer and— well, he looked like a professor, or some kind of scholar, and he carried a briefcase. He gestured to her hand and smiled. “ _ Angajate? _ ” he asked.

“Oh. Um. Sorry, I don’t… speak Romanian,” she said, shrugging. Wasn’t it like, Russian? Or… no, it had sounded like… “Engaged? Am I— engaged?”

He smiled and nodded. “ _ Da! Angajate!” _

“Oh, then—  _ da _ ,” she said, heartened. Maybe Romanian was closer to English than she’d thought. She brought to mind her one phrase she’d studied like crazy, practicing with Google Translate until it had sounded good. “ _ Nu vorbesc română. Scuze. _ ” Yeah, come to think of it,  _ scuze _ sounded like “scuse me” so that was pretty close, actually—

He waved as if to say,  _ no problem.  _ “ _ Oh, îmi pare rău. Mă întrebam doar de scrisoare. Acesta este un sigiliu interesant.” _

Well, shit. “Um…” Rey gnawed her lip.  _ Scrisoare,  _ that sounded like… inscription? Scribe? And had she heard  _ sigil? _ “Oh, the— the sigil? Yeah, my, um. Fiancé, I guess, he sent me this letter. God, I sound like the opposite of a mail bride, don’t I?” She pointed at the seal, handing him the letter, and he took it with interest, peering down at the black wax. 

His expression changed almost instantly. “ _ Acest lucru este foarte vechi. Familia din care făcea parte s-a stins acum sute de ani.” _

Rey judged his expression.  _ Familia,  _ that one was easy. Family. That rest might as well have been Klingon. “Familia?” she echoed, lost.

He nodded, his eyebrows drawn together in some concern. “ _ Da. Familia este moartă.” _

_ Moarta.  _ Didn’t take a genius intellect to work that one out. Her arms broke out in goosebumps. “Dead. A dead family, that’s… great.”

He handed her back the letter. “Safe,” he said sternly, in heavily accented English. “You. Be safe.”

“Right,” she muttered, looking down at the letter with sudden suspicion. A dead family. Why would someone from Romania take the bother of using a seal belonging to a dead family to write someone like her a letter? Maybe it was like… an extinct family in the male line. Maybe the seal belonged to his mom, or something, and he was using it out of sentiment. Yeah, there was an explanation. Poe was right: there was always an explanation for everything. This guy had a family line that had gone dead at some point, and he probably had just held onto the seals or something. She relaxed a little more as the man went back to reading his newspaper, and looked back out the window as the night deepened.

* * *

By the time the train finally reached Piatra Neamț, Rey was exhausted. It was almost ten o’clock, and she just wanted to sleep— not even the jet lag could get her excited.  _ Please have a bed, _ she thought, forcing herself to step off the train, luggage in hand as she scanned the platform for anyone who looked like he might be working for a count. All she could bring to mind was Igor from  _ Young Frankenstein,  _ and she had to fight a hysterical giggle as she trudged off the platform, had the ticket redeemed, and headed outside.

The station was beautiful. Rey turned to gape up at it: creamy white stone, red roofs illuminated by overhead streetlights. It looked like something out of a movie, or a postcard. She wished it was daylight so she could get a decent photo, and remembered she should text Rose. Quickly, she fumbled for her phone and shot off a message.  _ Reached the station in Piatra! _ She took a quick shot of herself smiling in front of the building, even though it was horribly blurry and backlit. Rose had sent a message somewhere on the train, probably while she was sleeping.  _ Be safe!! Luv u! _

Rey tucked her phone away and headed to the street. Taxis with yellow roofs were waiting, their drivers lounging around eager for customers, but she wasn’t sure what she had to do next, and besides, she didn’t have any more lei. “Hello, Count Whoever,” she muttered, shivering in the cool night air as Beebee meowed, likely mad about being cooped up so long. “Where’s Igor? Where’s my ride?”

“Miss Keyner?” asked a nasal, clipped voice in perfect British English.

She jumped almost out of her skin. A man was behind her, a man she was sure she hadn’t seen a minute ago. He was waiting by a gleaming black car about a million times nicer than any of the other ones idling in the parking lot, and he wore a black greatcoat that looked like it might have survived a world war or two. His red hair was immaculately combed and trimmed to perfection, and he was very pale, his green eyes vivid in the streetlights.  _ Vampire, _ she thought instantly.  _ Totally a vampire.  _ “Y-yes? I mean, that’s me. I am she, I mean.”

“Excellent.” He nodded at her politely and bent to pick up her bags. “My name is Huc: I work for the Conte, who expresses his warmest greetings. We have about a fifteen minute’s drive into the mountains. I have taken the liberty of picking up food for you— ah. This must be the cat.”

Her stomach rumbled at the mention of food. “This is Bombalurina,” said Rey, feeling a little better. “I call her Beebee. Does the Conte… like cats?”

“He does. At the moment we have only one, mine, and she is quite a terror.” Huc put her bags into the trunk and opened the door for her, and Rey, hefting up Beebee’s crate, slid into a warm back seat that smelled deliciously of leather and…  _ McDonalds? _ There was a paper bag waiting on the back seat. She tore in as Huc slipped behind the wheel and started to drive, and found a perfectly normal American burger, along with meatballs, a sandwich of a type she’d never seen at any stateside McDonald’s, and a plastic cup with what looked like fried balls of something under vanilla ice cream and strawberry syrup. 

“What, um…” She nibbled at the weird sandwich, and her face lit up: it was pork and pickles and horseradish sauce and it was delicious. A paper cup of water was also waiting in the cupholder, and Rey drank it carefully as the car made its way through the streets. “This is good!” She fed one of the meatballs to Beebee, who dug in with gusto.

“Limited menu,” said Huc. “I thought you might like a little taste of Romania, though I consider it to be… not very authentic.”

“It’s very good,” she said, mouth full of pork. “So what… what’s the Conte like?”

A pair of green eyes glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Reclusive,” he said, as if each syllable had been picked by hand. “Eccentric. But I have no complaints about him as an employer in the slightest.”

Well, she could do worse than an eccentric recluse. He was probably ninety, with a beard. “And why was he, uh, interested in having a marriage of convenience?”  _ And how did he get my address? And what’s the deal with that old family crest? _

“That is something you would have to ask the Conte, Miss Keyner,” said Huc lightly, but in a tone that said  _ do I look like I’m gonna dump his personal information all over the car? _ “I am not at liberty to say.”

“Oh. Okay.” Rey leaned back, scritching Beebee through the bars of the crate, and waited for the trip to be over.

* * *

She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until the car had stopped and the engine shut off, Huc’s footsteps crunching on gravel outside. The door opened quietly, and she scrambled to get out, dragging the crate with her. Beebee was hunched inside like a fluffy loaf of bread, with her feet tucked in, but meowed in protest and unfolded herself as her surroundings shifted. “Sorry, baby,” said Rey, clicking her tongue at the cat as Huc unlocked the trunk and lifted out her things. “Only a couple more minutes and I can let you out.”

“There is the house,” said Huc, gesturing over her shoulder. Rey turned, realizing she’d been so disoriented that she hadn’t even taken note of the surroundings, and saw…

That was a  _ house? _

Four stories high, huge, towers and turrets, huge pointed roofs, gables and arches and high walls— this thing was some mix of western European and Italian architecture, but the stone at the foundations looked even older— Middle Ages? Earlier? “How… old is it?” she ventured, clutching Beebee’s crate tightly.

“Older than it looks,” said Huc, locking the car, her bags in hand. “Follow me, please.”

“I only asked,” she added quickly, trotting along behind him, “because— because the exterior looks like, um, Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, sort of, with the turrets, but the stones near the base there are definitely Middle Ages.”

“Ah!” he said, turning his head to speak. “Yes, you do have a good eye for history’s marks. He said you had studied at university. The original castle was built in the early Middle Ages, Miss Keyner; the existing face was remodeled in the nineteenth century.”

“I’m surprised I didn’t see it on any maps or brochures,” said Rey as they mounted the steps. “I mean, it’s lovely, if a little… creepy at night.”

“The Conte is a man who values privacy,” said Huc. 

“And you… you live here, too?”

“I come in when I am needed,” he said. “To drive, to put in various work orders, to ensure order is preserved— all the minutiae that comes with maintaining the estate. There is also a cleaning service that comes once every two weeks.” They had reached the massive front doors, which looked like walnut reinforced with steel, and Huc opened the door easily, letting Rey step into a foyer that could have fit a herd of elephants. 

Rugs on the floor, a glittering chandelier, a roaring fire, marble, wood, paintings, lamps. She felt slightly dizzy. It was cool in the castle, but the fire was radiating heat everywhere. “Oh,” said Rey faintly. “It… it’s really pretty.”

“You may release the cat,” said Huc, gesturing at Beebee’s crate. “Where would you like her dishes to be put?”

“The kitchen, if that’s all right. I'll let her out in there. She should know where her food is— oh, and the box—I couldn’t bring a litter box—”

“Bombalurina may share with Millicent, whose box is in the scullery. She also has the run of the kitchen. Little tyrant.” Huc nodded and extended a hand, and Rey went the direction he indicated. “Over here and down the hall, we have the kitchen through that green baize door...”

The kitchen was charming. Rey had never seen one so huge before, and spent a good moment just gaping at the fixtures: a huge enamel sink, a prep table the size of her apartment in New York, stone floors, and pots and pans dangling from the ceiling. Huc set the crate down and gently opened it, and Beebee came sniffing out, tail like a bottle brush at her new surroundings. “There,” he said, setting down her dishes and filling it with food. “All’s well with you, then. Millie!” He clicked his tongue as he raised his voice. “We have a new friend! Come say hello!”

The orange tabby cat appeared so silently that Rey almost jumped. She was groomed almost as impeccably as her owner, with big yellow eyes and a bright red collar. Beebee froze at the sight of this new cat, and stretched out her nose after a moment, smelling her. Millicent returned the gesture after a moment, but drew back with a hiss, and Rey was startled to see another cat, this one black and white, trot in and immediately flop itself on the floor in front of Beebee, who jumped, but went along with it, sniffling at the newcomer. 

“And who’s this handsome boy?” Rey asked, pointing at the black and white cat, who was very obviously an unneutered male. It was enormous, probably thirty pounds, and  big , a sleek shorthair with deep copper-colored eyes. Beebee immediately took to the newcomer, purring, and tackled him. The black and white cat yowled, then pretended to bunny-kick her in a playful tussle on the flagstones. Rey laughed. 

“Oh,” said Huc, shrugging. “There are a lot of strays about. I like to feed them. They come in, but only after I give them a flea-bath.” As if the stray cat had heard him, it rolled off Beebee and sat upright, looking directly at Huc, then let out a hoarse, low _mrow_. “Yes,” said Huc, mouth twisting in a wry grin, “I’m talking about you. No fleas or mud on the good carpet, if you please.”

Rey grinned and crouched down. “Oh, he’s smart, isn’t he?” She stretched out her right hand, whistling slightly through her teeth,  _ pss pss pss _ , but the cat just looked at her with big coppery eyes. “Come on,” she coaxed, wiggling her fingers. “You’re such a pretty boy. Handsome boy. You want ear scritches? Huh? Chin rubs?”

The cat inched closer, slowly, sniffed delicately at her fingers, then shoved his nose down along her palm and wove his way across her knees. He nudged his head under her left hand, rubbing his forehead against the ridge of the ring on her finger there… and started to purr. It was so loud that Rey almost jumped: he sounded like an engine trying to start, or a motorboat, and his whole body vibrated with the force of it. “He’s loud,” she said, grinning as she rubbed at the cat’s chin. “What are they feeding you, big guy? Tuna five times a day?”

Millicent, seemingly convinced, rubbed up against her other knee, and then against Beebee, who batted at her lightly, then flopped to her back, exposing her belly. The orange cat began to groom Beebee, licking her ears. Huc sighed. “Well, they have gotten on famously, it seems: I think we ought to let the animals eat, and I may show you to your room.”

Rey stood, but the Oreo-colored cat gave another hoarse meow, and stretched up on his hind legs, pressing his paws against her thigh as if he was asking to be picked up. She chuckled and leaned down, scooping him up: he was what the internet would call a Chonky Boi _ , _ and solid as a brick. “I don’t suppose I can take this fella upstairs with me?” she asked Huc.

He glanced at the cat. “The cleaning service has said that cat hair is simply dreadful to get out of the carpets upstairs and the bed covers. I should leave him down here for the night. He may go back out roaming in the morning, when it stops drizzling.”

“Oh. Okay.” Rey set the cat back down and rubbed the top of his head. “If I don’t see you again,” she said to him, “it was nice to meet you, kitty."  The cat meowed again and flopped over on the flagstones, his front paws kneading air as he watched her leave with slitted copper eyes.

* * *

Her room was gorgeous. Apparently the nineteenth century hadn’t been the last time the plumbing had been updated, because she had a private bathroom with a huge, Edwardian-style clawfoot tub and a rainfall shower and a toilet and a vanity, and the actual bedroom was massive, probably twice the size of her old apartment alone. The bed was an antique, hand-carved, French style thing that had to be five feet wide and had a footboard that curved around the mattress. It had been painted a pale grayish blue at some point, which matched the curtains and the rugs. Her walls were white with gold-painted flowers carved into the panels. She felt… almost like a princess, and that was something she’d never felt before.

“So, um, when do I meet the Conte?” she asked as she stood in the middle of the room, aghast at the luxury as Huc set her things down by the antique wardrobe. 

“When he is able to meet you,” was the answer. “Would you like me to unpack while you wash?”

“Oh, God, no,” she said, horrified at the thought of this flawless man going through her holey old underwear and bras. “I’ll do that myself. Thank you, Huc.”

If he was amused by her expression, he did not show it. “Of course, Miss Keyner. What would you like for breakfast?”

“Breakfast? Oh. Um. Toast, and coffee. And orange juice. And maybe waffles?”

“Coffee with cream and sugar?”

“Both, yes.”

“Very good. Sleep well.” He nodded politely and left, shutting the door carefully behind him.

She’d meant to explore the whole place, but she was so bone-tired that she couldn’t do anything but drag herself into the bathroom, shower, yank on a pair of clean underwear, and collapse face-first into freshly laundered sheets and silk blankets, completely asleep by the time her head hit the pillow.

* * *

Her phone was buzzing. What was going on? Why was her phone going off? Had she missed a work shift? “H’lo?” she muttered, sleepily lifting her head from the pillow and turning her face toward her nightstand.  _ Low battery _ . The red bar on her phone was so low it was almost invisible. She blinked, trying to focus her bleary eyes, and in the darkness of the room, something moved, just out of the corner of her eye, almost too fast to see. 

Rey choked on her own spit and fell out of bed, landing with a thump on the carpet.  _ Ghosts! The place is fucking haunted as shit! I knew it! _ “Hello?” she called into the dark. What the hell time was it?  _ Grow some balls and yell at that ghost.  _ “Fuck out of here, you fucking ghost! I’m trying to sleep!”

No movement, no answer. She got to her feet and switched on her bedside lamp, and the room… was empty. Not even a hint of any forced entry, windows closed, not a breath of air stirring, but she was  _ sure  _ she’d seen something, something huge and dark in her room… 

Her phone was dead. Shit. There were no outlets up here, were there? She looked around, and gave up.  _ I’ll look in the morning _ . Rey climbed back into bed and pulled the sheets up over her head, drifting back off to sleep as her heart rate returned to normal.

She left the light on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Fun fact: Romanian is a romance language like Spanish or Italian, but it can be hard for speakers of those languages to understand Romanian because it uses a TON of Slavic loanwords. No translation in anything Romanian will be provided throughout this fic. You all get to be just as confused as Rey.  
> \- Initially Hux was going to have a Romanian name similar to what "Hux" or "Huxley" means in English, but the translation was so dissimilar that I just picked a similar Romanian name and called it a day.  
> \- O WOW WHAT COULD REY HAVE SEEN it is a MYSTERY   
> \- I am blown away by the amount of comments already. Please. You gUYs.


	3. In Which Rey Meets The Conte, But Is He All He Appears To Be?

Morning brought Huc, who briskly walked into her room and drew the curtains aside, smacking her in the face with bright sunshine. “Oh, God,” Rey groaned, quickly dragging the sheets to cover her chest. If he was shocked at her state of undress, he didn’t show it at all. “What time is it?”

“Eight in the morning, Miss Keyner. Your breakfast is on the tray.” 

She sat up, still clutching the sheets to her chest, and saw that he had a tray, an honest-to-god butler tray with wheels and a cover, and it was standing by her bed. “Oh,” she said, and swung her legs out from under the covers. There was a silk bathrobe she hadn't seen before waiting at the foot of the bed, and she shrugged it on, tying it shut before opening the cart.

The delicious smell of waffles, maple syrup, butter, toast, and coffee wafted out of the lid, and she stared at the silverware and the dishes— it was antique china, patterned with roses, and the silverware looked like it might actually be real silver. Rey picked up a fork that probably cost as much as her old rent and dug in as Huc tidied up the floor and tied the drapes back. The waffles were absolutely perfect, heavenly, soft and fluffy and thick with butter. She wolfed everything down and wiped her mouth on the cloth napkin, trying to get the last trace of syrup off her lips. “So do I get to meet the Conte today, Huc?”

“Mm.” Well, there was a non committal answer if she’d ever heard one. Huc turned and crossed his arms, eyeing her critically. “You were disturbed last night?”

“Oh. You heard that?” Rey slipped out of bed. “Uh, yeah, I woke up because my phone was saying the battery was running low, and— I thought I saw something moving in here. Are there… is the place haunted?”

“Haunted?” he asked, opening a window. The bright, clear morning air swept in, and Rey inhaled without meaning to: it smelled like summer and adventure and pine trees, and the view… oh, the view was  _ stunning _ , she could see mountains and forests and far below, the valley where Piatra lay. “I suppose that depends on what you mean. Certainly the house is very old, and with a house this old people have died inside.”

“But like… no transparent women in creepy dresses moaning in the halls?”

“No, Miss Keyner. Nothing like that.” He checked his watch. “I believe the Conte is in his study, and to answer your earlier inquiry, yes, he would like very much to meet you today. In addition, the room has no electric outlets, but you may find one in your bathroom. Do you need a plug adapter?”

Rey grimaced. She  _ knew _ she’d forgotten something. “Yes, please, if you can find one or two.”

“I will hunt a few down as soon as I leave you with the Conte. When you are dressed, I will be waiting at the top of the stairs.” He nodded sharply and left, shutting the door and taking the tray with him, and Rey sat there in bewilderment. 

_ Oh, God. I have to meet him.  _ What the hell did you wear to meet your new maybe-husband who you were only marrying for convenience, who also happened to live in a haunted castle (because this place was absolutely haunted, no matter what Huc said) and who was eccentric and old and weird? She opened her suitcase and went through everything she owned, laying out combinations on the bed. What she wouldn’t give for Pinterest right about now. 

Finally, she settled on a dress she’d bought on sale from a vintage shop after haggling the price down with the shop owner over a missing button and a rip in the hem and fixed herself. It was pale yellow, with puffed short sleeves, a tie-neck, and a gathered bodice, and it wasn’t itchy, not even around the elastic waistline. She’d brought it thinking maybe there’d be a chance to go exploring around the city, but this worked just fine. For lack of any cute shoes, she popped on her trusty sneakers and a clean pair of socks, then examined herself in the mirror. 

At least she looked like she’d slept. Rey frowned and rummaged around for her dollar-store eyebrow pencil, then carefully filled in her brows a little. There. She didn’t want to go overboard and turn up to meet this guy looking like a mail-order bride, she just wanted to look… like herself. A cute version of herself, but herself.

“Well, you’re not gonna meet him just standing there,” she said to her reflection in the baroque mirror, and turned on her heel to walk out the door.

* * *

Huc met her at the stair like he’d said he would, and she made her way down behind him as he spoke. “The study is on the second floor. The Conte likes to spend most of his time in there. Do not be alarmed at its appearance, and most certainly do not ask to rearrange anything. It is his room and his alone, and you enter by invitation only.”

“Okay,” said Rey, gnawing on her lip. “Anywhere else that’s off-limits?”

“The third floor, east wing— dry rot has got into the wood, and we are still working on replacing it.” Huc sighed deeply, as if the existence of dry rot was a personal affront. “It has been blocked off with tape.  _ Tape, _ as if we are a construction site. Vulgar. Is there anything else you would like me to fetch for you while I am in town?”

She had to smile. “Um, maybe a new pair of shoes? I wear a US eight. I… I don’t know what size that corresponds to here. I just— these are—”

“Falling apart,” he finished, looking down at her feet. “Yes. I see that. The use of polyethylene tape to repair it… very ingenious.”

“It’s not too obvious, is it?” she asked, suddenly nervous. “Oh, god. What if the Conte thinks it’s tacky?”

“Just take your shoes off at the door,” said Huc, waving a hand as they reached two huge French doors carved in ornate rosewood. “I’ll dispose of them and bring you back a new pair. Maybe a few. You can go about in socks or bare feet until then.”

“Okay—” Rey toed off her sneakers and dumped them at the door, then bounced on her toes as Huc opened it. Her heart was pounding like crazy, her throat dry, her hands shaking.  _ Why am I so nervous? _ At her ankles, an inquisitive little  _ chrrip _ met her ears, and there was Beebee, winding around her ankles. “Oh, baby girl,” she said, and picked up her cat, snuggling her close. “You came to give me some backup, huh?”

She was ushered into the room, which was large, dark, and strangely gloomy despite the high windows. There was no fire going in here, and the light filtering through the dust made her think of abandoned libraries, old schools— the hair stood up on the back of her neck. “Conte,” called Huc, “I have brought Miss Keyner.”

Nobody was visible at all. Rey had expected… well, not this. Maybe she'd expected an old man sitting with his back to her in a high-backed antique swivel chair, who would turn around and say  _ Ah, I’ve been waiting for you _ , and then she’d have to watch her manners.

Something rustled in a dark corner. 

Rey froze. Beebee squirmed out of her arms, then trotted off happily toward the noise. “Beeb,” she hissed, squinting in the gloom. “Where are you going?”

A shape came out of the gloom, Beebee winding happily around its ankles and purring fit to beat the band. “Thank you, Huc— you may go,” said a voice, and the  _ voice:  _ she couldn’t see his face, but the voice was… dark, low and deep and gravelly as a riverbed, solemn, firm. The door shut behind her. Huc was gone, silently as a cloud, and she was alone with a voice. “Miss Keyner,” it said, and Rey found that her hands were ice-cold, her feet chilled on the wood floor. “I am delighted to meet you at last, and express my sincerest regrets that I could not do so earlier.”

“H-hello,” she stammered as he came closer. The wan light from the windows struck his head as he neared her, and she had only the impression of a single eye, a pale cheek, and part of his head: the eye was a fascinating color: browny-green around the edges, almost the color of rosewood in the centers, and his eye was so hooded that it appeared to slant at the corners into a long triangle. He paused about ten feet from her, the rest of him still hidden by shadow, that single eye fixed on her, a sweep of dark hair illuminated by the sunlight. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I should call you.” He didn’t look old at all, or what she could see of him didn’t, but that  _ voice... _

The eye twitched, passing over her. “Ah. I see. No, you cannot call me  _ Conte _ , can you? I think  _ Solovei _ will suffice between us, then: you ought not to address me as my staff does.” He bent, the eye disappearing, and when he stood up into the light again, he was holding Beebee, a white, brown, and orange purring blur in his arms. “Hello, Bombalurina. A fine name for a fine lady. T.S. Eliot?” The eye flickered up to hers again.

Rey relaxed a little. “Oh, yeah. Yes, I mean—um, huh. You’re the first person to refer to Eliot and not the musical 'Cats', which is what most people ask me when they find out her full name.”

“He was a good poet,” said the Conte, soft and quiet. “You have, then, read the Four Quartets?”

“Yes, I have,” said Rey, feeling completely as if the rug had been yanked out from under her. “I think ‘East Coker’ is my favorite, though they’re pretty good all together, too. What’s yours?”

“‘Dry Salvages’,” he said instantly, stepping a little closer. Now she could make out his general shape, if not his whole face or his clothing— he was  _ tall,  _ really tall, over six feet, with a very broad torso. Rey was five-seven, not short by any means, but she felt tiny next to this guy: what the hell did they feed people in Romania? “How did you like Piatra?”

“I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to see it in the daylight. It was really pretty.” Rey shifted her weight: her feet really were cold. “Can I… sorry, I don’t have shoes, and the floor is freezing.”

“Ah, of course. I apologize. I rarely invite anyone in here…” He turned and she followed him to a large loveseat that looked practically ancient, upholstered in mohair. “Please sit.”

She did, and he crouched down about four feet away, doing something with his hands she couldn’t make out until a fire sprang to sudden life, and  _ then _ she could see the fireplace. Golden, warm light streamed out around him, making the gloomy study seem a lot cozier, and when he turned around and moved back, she could see him clearly. 

Rey had expected… she didn’t know what. A man in shabby, ancient clothes, maybe a ruffled neck shirt and a vest, or a black coat like a pirate, or even a bathrobe. She hadn’t expected a totally normal man wearing what looked like a crewneck, black cashmere sweater and black jeans, barefoot. Solovei had a… strangely compelling face: not movie-star handsome, and not ancient old recluse, either: he looked like he couldn’t be older than thirty-five, with some delicate laugh lines around his deep set eyes, a nose just this side of too large for his long, highboned face, a soft, crooked jaw, and a full, soft mouth that turned down slightly at the corners. He looked tired, though— he had dark circles under his eyes and his facial hair was patchy and growing only around his chin and upper lip. It didn’t look like it grew very well on his cheeks or jaw despite the lush, dark hair that grew down to his chest. And he was giving her this look, a look like he wasn’t sure what she was going to say, or do; a look like he was second-guessing himself all over again.

Well, she sure wasn’t going to be a dick about it. “There you are,” she said, offering a smile. Maybe this arrangement could work out after all. “Were you hiding in the shadows to be dramatic?”

He made a little sound like  _ hmph _ and moved away a little further, sitting down in a comfortable looking chair. Beebee rubbed herself on his ankles and chirped, then leaped up into his lap and stretched out her paws, draped luxuriantly across this stranger’s thighs.  _ Traitor,  _ Rey thought. “I confess that I lost my taste for the dramatic some time ago. I apologize. You must have questions.”

“Several, actually, yeah,” said Rey, gearing up. “First one. How the hell did you find my home address to mail me that letter?”

He had the decency at least to look a little embarrassed. “It was on the Internet.”

Rey blinked. “The Internet. Okay, first of all,  _ no _ , and second of all, Craigslist is anonymous. I literally— it only has a link to my email. Why didn’t you just use that?”

“I don’t have electronic mail. I looked up your Internet Protocol address.”

Her mouth fell open. “You… you looked up my IP? How do you— how do you not have email but you figured out how to look up my IP address? I— hold on, that still doesn’t explain how you found my full  _ name _ , because I shared that wifi with—”

“Ten other individuals,” said Solovei. “Yes.”

Rey felt like she was choking. “Wh—”

He looked very uncomfortable. “I should more accurately state that I looked up the IP address, and then looked up the street address in connection to the wireless network. I ordered some paperwork from the Department of Records in New York City, found that the building is owned by a man leasing various bedrooms to tenants, and— well, there were records available of the leases signed, and you had already provided enough information in the post itself to narrow it down.”

She tried to remember how to breathe for a second. “In a  _ week? _ You did all that in less than a week?”

“One thing remains a certainty, Miss Keyner,” said Solovei, looking at the fire for a moment. “Anyone will do anything for you if you hand them enough currency of their choice. I find it to be a spectacular way to cut through the sludge of bureaucracy.”

“Oh, my God,” said Rey, covering her face for a minute. “I find it super,  _ super _ hard to believe that you went to all that trouble just to send me a letter.”

Solovei shifted. “I thought it would be more personal. I wanted to reassure you that I was sincere.”

“I didn’t write back. How did you know I was coming?”

“The tickets were only good for certain dates. Within that frame of time…” He waved his hand dismissively. “Huc had been waiting for a good twelve or fourteen hours for you, I think. If you hadn’t arrived by this evening, he was to come back and report.”

“For… he just drove down there that morning and he’d been waiting all day?” Rey didn’t know what to feel. “That’s not a nice way to treat someone who works for you.”

“He’s well compensated for dealing with my eccentricities,” said Solovei, raising an eyebrow. “Of which I have many, Miss Keyner. Very,  _ very _ well compensated.”

“So— okay, we’ll have a conversation about wage slavery later, I guess— question two, what did you— I mean, why—” Rey brought her hands to her eyes again and exhaled deeply. “I guess I just want to know why you chose… me. Why you even need a wife in the first place, or the appearance of one— what about this is convenient for  _ you _ ?”

His eyes narrowed. “That,” he said very quietly, “is my own business. As for why  _ you, _ surely you must have some idea.”

She blinked. “What? Why would I have an idea? I didn’t post any photos at all. I just said a bunch of dumb stuff about myself and said I wanted to get out of America. Unless it was the lemon bars. Or you actually do have a godmother you want to piss off in the attic somewhere.”

Solvei cracked precisely half a close-lipped smile. “You were amusing, Miss Keyner. Careless of exposing your own perceived faults, and entertainingly flippant. I admit I was interested to meet someone of… your age.”

“Oh, sure,” said Rey, rolling her eyes. “Because nobody my age exists in Piatra.”

“I find Americans in particular so… quaint,” he said, tilting his head to size her up. “Your country is so young, and you all think you know everything. You haven’t even had a real revolution, you know: you went from a monarchist colony to a federal republic in less than a decade, and now you’re not even a republic: you’re an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy mingled with… religious fervor. Why, you have yet to experience your first communist revolution.”

“Well, we can always hope,” Rey joked, and his face went so cold and blank that she instantly regretted it. 

“I would caution you, Miss Keyner,” he said, in a voice so cold with barely-restrained fury that she wanted to cringe and hide in the sofa, “to not be so careless in that regard when you speak outside these walls, for you were not here when the Eastern Bloc still stood, or when Ceaușescu’s Decree 770 swelled the orphanages with millions of wailing children whose parents could not afford to raise them.”

Rey felt incredibly small, and young, and stupid. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking away and into the fire. 

He was silent for a moment, then sighed. “I cannot blame you wholly. The young are always sure they know everything, and then when they grow old, they know that they know nothing. Tell me. Was your journey here enjoyable?”

“Oh,  _ yeah _ ,” she said, brightening, and started to tell him about every single thing she’d seen from JFK to Bucharest.

* * *

Solovei was a good listener. He paid close attention to everything she said, nodding at all the right times and asking questions and almost smiling when she said something funny, and he seemed extremely eager to make sure everything had gone right for her. If she didn’t know better, she would have called him  _ eager to please,  _ but that remained to be seen. He was hard to get a read on. 

“And your parents,” he said at one point during a conversation about her selling the car, “they did not object to any of this?”

“I don’t have parents,” she explained, her feet tucked in warmly under a blanket he’d found for her. “Just me. Lots of foster homes. I have friends, though. They said if you turned out to be a creepy sex trafficker they’d get me back to New York.”

He nodded sagely, as if they were completely reasonable. “I see. Good. You may tell them at your earliest convenience that I do not intend to send you anywhere.”

That was another thing: he talked like the protagonist of an old timey novel. Like Mr. Darcy or something, and he didn’t have a Romanian accent at all. He sounded… completely middle of the line American. “Why don’t you have an accent?” she blurted out, too interested to care about being rude.

He gave her a funny look. “I thought it might… be easier if you heard a familiar voice. I can, of course, speak in any accent you wish me to. Do you dislike it?”

“No,” Rey said, “it’s just… weird, you know, that you’re Romanian and don’t have an accent.”

“I’m not Romanian,” he said, shaking his head.

Rey threw her hands up, exasperated. “How are you not Romanian? You live in Romania, you have a family castle here.”

“Next question,” he said, slight humor working its way into his voice. 

“Oh, fine. Okay, speaking of your family, here’s one I bet I won’t get an answer to. Some guy on the train saw your seal on the letter, because I was reading it again, and he said something about a dead family, or at least I think he did. Might have meant ‘extinct family’ like, extinct name or something. What’s that all about?”

Solovei went very still, and his pale, thick throat bobbed slowly as he swallowed. “You… were reading my letter on the train?”

Rey frowned. “Yeah. I mean, I liked to take it out and give it a look a couple times a day to make sure I didn’t, um, dream the whole thing up. Should I not have done that?”

“It is not… I am not upset. I… the opposite, really.” He swallowed again. “I find myself very pleased at the idea that you kept the letter on your person and read it so often.”

“You have… pretty handwriting,” she mumbled, feeling suddenly shy. “But about the family…”

Solovei leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.“The man was, no doubt, some professor of antiquities, and he is correct: that seal I used has been extinct in ordinary use for a very long time. However, I confess I am somewhat sentimental towards things of its nature. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

“Yes,” said Rey, and her stomach growled as if on a cue. “Oh, man. It’s got to be noon by now.”

“One in the afternoon,” said Solovei, checking the clock over the mantel. “We have spent a good four hours speaking. I hope it… resulted in you feeling more comfortable here.”

“It did,” she said, surprised to find that she was telling the truth. “So, um. About the legal stuff… I brought everything I needed to get married on my end. I just don’t have a health certificate from the county here. And I guess once we get that, uh, we can get married whenever— doesn’t have to be  _ now,  _ you know, but just, uh, before three months is up, because that’s when I have to apply for my long term residence visa if I want to stay.”

“I see,” he said. “I will have Huc drive you into Piatra for the certificate, then. It should take but a moment.”

“So do you, uh, normally stay in here all day?” she asked, standing up. He stood as soon as she did. “Or do you, like— what do you do in a typical day?”

“Mm. Well. I confess I am a little of a nocturnal creature,” said Solovei, shooting her a half-awkward little quirk of his mouth that she was starting to recognize as the closest he got to a smile. “So I normally haunt this room, mainly, but I may be out in the garden around dusk or dawn.”

“Do you sleep in here? Or…”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, but from his expression she could tell he was not going to reveal that information, no matter what she did. “What do you like to do in a day?”

“Well,” she began, and paused: what  _ did _ she like to do when she wasn’t working her ass off? “Normally, I mean, in Brooklyn, I worked all the time. And I mean all the time. Morning to night. So my free time was just… I don’t know. Scrolling through the internet. Playing with Beebee. Stuff.”

“Then this may be an opportunity for you to rediscover enjoyable pastimes, I hope,” he said, and Rey could tell he meant it.

* * *

They went down to the kitchen, Beebee following them closely and getting all underfoot, and Solovei had Rey sit at the table while he pulled a pair of warm socks (and who had socks stashed in a kitchen drawer?) out and made her put them on before he started in on lunch. Rey watched him work in admiration: he was quick despite his size, and had the art of making a grilled cheese down to a science. In no time at all, a perfectly browned, buttery sandwich oozing with cheddar and a few strips of crisp bacon was sitting on a plate in front of her, and she chowed down happily while he rummaged through the fridge and found himself a plastic container of leftover lasagna, which he ate in companionable silence, leaning on the big prep table.

In the middle of lunch, Huc came home, and politely informed Rey that some purchases were waiting in her rooms. Solovei asked him to take her into town for the health check, and he nodded as if it was no trouble, and Rey found herself bumping along back down the mountain road to Piatra, enjoying the scenery.

In the daylight, it was way more Sound of Music than Dracula, and she had her certificate in Romanian deeming her perfectly healthy in about five minutes at a clinic in town. Huc drove her back up, and she leaned out of the window to see the house better.

It was  _ beautiful _ in the daylight. Creamy stone, red and black tiles, wood beams, slate turrets: it was like a fairytale, and she was living in it.  _ Nothing could possibly go wrong,  _ she thought, grinning, and when she got back up to her room she found brand new pairs of sturdy sneakers, new socks, and (probably pointedly on Huc’s part) a set of pajamas. 

It wasn’t until she was climbing back into bed that night that she remembered she had forgotten to ask about the ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- look for an update about every day! i just got some last minute news I'll be moving to another house and I don't know when so there may be a delay for a few upcoming chapters.


	4. In Which Answers Are Mulled Over And All Of Them Are Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for some gore, GSW, and animals in pain!  
>  a HUGE thank you to curiousniffin for the gorgeous moodboard which can be found here: https://twitter.com/curiousniffin/status/1254061420582449159

A week went by, then another, and Rey was having the time of her life. Solovei didn’t really invite her into the study a whole lot, maybe once a week or so, but that was fine by her: she commandeered Huc for trips to the shopping center and bought a new iPhone with Solovei’s money, which he handed over completely willingly, apropo of nothing; she experimented with manicures, which she’d never had money or time for before; she tried new food she’d never thought about and took pictures of every single building in Piatra and basically just had a blast. _I could get used to this,_ she thought more than once, eating breakfast in bed while Huc opened her curtains every morning at eight on the dot. 

She’d almost forgotten about the ghost on her first night, or whatever it had been. Probably just a weird dream, or a trick of the light on her jetlagged eyes. The big black cat had also not made a reappearance, but a few other big strays had shown up, happy to be fed, and her mornings were taken up mostly with petting Big Handsome Boys and Big Sweet Girls, her afternoons with exploring, and her evenings with either visits to the study (if invited) or dinner in the garden (if not).

Rose texted almost daily: _has he tried 2 suck ur blooood yet??_ Rey would read them and laugh, sending back things like _yeah totally he’s eating me right nooooow oh no_! Solovei didn’t seem to have any form of electronic banking, which meant Rey couldn’t wire money back to the States to help out her friends, but she solved that problem by finding a thick packing envelope and stuffing it full of lei, about a thousand dollars’ worth, and sending it by mail to Poe’s address. Solovei hadn’t even cared when she’d asked, and told her she should do whatever she wanted with his money, and furthermore that he liked the idea, and to let him know if it worked, because he had no problem with sending more.

 _There has got to be another shoe dropping soon,_ she thought uneasily, one May afternoon as she sat in the huge garden, drinking tea. Men didn’t just… give people money for nothing, and she wasn’t doing anything except lounging around, going for runs around the property, gardening, shopping, and fiddling around with the cool old stuff she kept finding in the house. He had a music room with beautiful instruments, pianos and violins and guitars and harps, a mix of antique and modern stuff, and he’d found her one day trying to pluck out Tom Petty on the upright harp. “Ah, you want this for that,” he’d said, and handed her a freaking 1959 Gibson Les Paul in spotless condition. “Go on, try it.”

The amount of things he just _had_ were amazing. Vintage photographs of blurry landscapes in frames and in albums, a shocking amount of old books, record players, Victrolas, wax cylinders, radios, clothes from every era she could imagine, of every style, jewelry both costume and priceless jumbled up in piles together, shoes, sketchbooks, paints, instruments… the list went on and on. The study was even crazier, on the occasions she got to go inside: statues, art pieces, furniture that looked so old she was afraid to touch it, weapons hanging on the wall, a ping-pong table, rugs, and most out of place of all, a section that seemed reserved entirely for technology, from abacuses to planimeters to slide rules to chunky yellowed old IBM machines to a Macintosh Portable to what seemed to be Solovei’s mainly used machine: a brand-new Dell laptop, looking hilariously out of place in the antiques. 

He asked her a million questions whenever she was invited into the study. What did she think about this or that model car? Did she like theater? Most importantly, did she understand this funny picture he’d found on the Internet? Explaining memes took a surprisingly short amount of time, and Solovei started printing them off on his ancient, early 2000s printer, gluing them carefully into albums and showing her his updated collection every time she came in with pride. Rey was pretty sure some of them were Russian, but she laughed at the ones she could understand anyway. He listened, enthralled, to her descriptions of New York, admitting he had not had the chance to visit recently, and took notes by meticulous hand in a vellum book, asking her to repeat herself politely when he wanted to jot down something she’d said word for word.

But Rey still felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He hadn’t told her yet, or even hinted at why _he_ wanted a marriage of convenience, and she was determined to find out, even if he wouldn’t tell her. Why would anyone like him want or need a wife?

* * *

Late May brought more rain, and Rey found herself stuck indoors more often than anything. She passed the time walking around and looking at all the art, but Huc wasn’t around much (he had time off, at her insistence, mostly) so she was pretty much alone except for Beebee, who kept her company and purred around her ankles as she wandered around through the castle. Solovei was nowhere to be found. He’d left on business in mid-May, though what business that was she had no idea, so she had the whole place to herself.

Her phone buzzed with a news alert. She ran it through Google Translate, bored, and frowned, it was saying something about a missing person’s case being reopened. The rest was badly translated gibberish. Rey sighed. She got plenty of these a day, but it was worth it for stories like “Youths Set Car On Fire, Protest Taxes”. 

* * *

By early June, Rey was getting suspicious and compiling lists of weird shit that was happening all at the same time. She wasn’t stupid: every time Solovei left on “business”, there was inevitably some news article within a day or two about a missing flock of sheep, or a person going missing, or a UFO sighting in a forest, or… just _something_ weird. It had happened about three times now like clockwork, but just _not_ weird or blatant enough that she felt like she should say something outright. She couldn’t put her finger on a connection, but whatever was going on was strange, and Huc, when he was around, wasn’t biting any of the bait she was laying.

She’d texted Rose a few times, but Rose was busy with the shop a lot, so she wasn’t really able to speak to her as much as she would have liked. Poe and Finn didn’t text back a lot either. Their Instagram accounts were rarely updated, and Rey read a couple news articles about the United States’ further mishandling of economic crises: she couldn’t help but feel both guilty and relieved that she’d made it out. She would have sent more cash, but she didn’t know where Solovei kept it, and he was not often around these days, or at least, when he was, he wasn’t awake when she was. She’d find notes on the refrigerator in his careful script at eight in the morning: _Came home late. Apologies. Will be out all next week._

“Huc,” she asked point blank one morning over pancakes, “what’s Solovei’s business that he’s always gone away for?”

Huc didn’t move a muscle for a moment, then turned to look at her. “You would have to ask him, Miss Keyner,” he said. “I am not privy to his affairs.”

“Right,” she said, sighing. “Well, do you know when he’s going to be back?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Huc, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d say he looked like he absolutely knew. 

* * *

She finished her notes that night, sitting up in her bedroom and writing furiously. 

_Gone constantly. Secretive. Weird things in the news, maybe related, maybe not?? No online banking, only cash. I think I’ve figured it out..._

_HE MAY BE IN THE ROMANIAN MAFIA_ _?? Gangs? It would explain the money. Mafia here usually goes to other countries according to Wikipedia but there’s a BIG mob presence in Bucharest dealing w/ prostitution and drugs and organized crime. _

She tapped her pen to her mouth. He didn’t have any visible tattoos, but he always wore long sleeves and pants, no matter the temperature in the house, and the most skin she’d ever seen on him was his face and his hands and his feet. Rey made another note: _check for tattoos— find a way to see him without his shirt on???_ Maybe if she was super sneaky about it, she’d find a way to unearth the truth. She was leaning toward mafioso, though: it was the only way to explain why the hell Huc put up with him. 

There was also the matter of considering how the fuck she was going to handle being engaged to a Romanian mobster. Sure, she liked the security that having money brought, but there was definitely a line she wasn’t comfortable crossing, and “profiting off of illegal shit and extortion” was right about where that line was. _It’s time to have a goddamn conversation,_ she thought angrily, pacing around, _and I don’t care how eccentric or weird he is. We need to talk about this._

* * *

A clap of thunder so loud it rattled the windows jolted Rey awake out of a sound sleep in the middle of the summer night. It was pouring down rain, a late thunderstorm blowing down the mountains, and her windows had crashed open inwards, the curtains waving wildly. 

She scrambled out of bed, and as she reached for the windows, she heard a wailing shriek over the thunder and rain and wind, far below. Rey bent over, trying to see, because it almost sounded like an animal, and then in the yellow pool of light from the front door lamps, she saw something running on all fours, struggling to move toward the doors, as if it had been mangled. It didn’t look like any animal she had ever seen, though admittedly she only had a second to see it, and it was _big,_ and it disappeared into the door below. 

A prickle went up her spine, aching in her upper arms; the same feeling she got when she saw horrible photos of the deep black ocean, or sharks, or those freaky lotus seedpod things. Great. Now whatever that was was _in the fucking house._

“Holy _fuck,_ ” she said, horrified. What the hell was that? Why was the door unlocked this late? Where was Huc? What was that _thing?_

She looked around frantically for a weapon, her heart beating out a staccato in her ribcage. “A stick,” she said, running as fast as she could to the bathroom. “Anything, oh my God, what the hell was that…” It was like a horror movie, the way it had moved, like a stop-motion animation, or something worse. Tears of fear swelled in her eyes, and she rubbed them away, grabbing up the toilet-paper holder. It was wrought iron, with a weighted bottom, and would do just fine. 

Armed with her weapon and swathed in her pajamas, Rey put her hand on the doorknob and listened. There was no sound in the hall outside. _I’ll just… step out. And see. That’s all._ She took a deep breath, every nerve feeling raw, and opened the door, listening. 

Silence. 

Rey took a few steps out, gripping the toilet paper rack like it was a Louisville slugger and she was up to the plate for the Mets. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she hissed with every step on the plush carpet. The entry hall was dark, too, and she made her way down the stairs. Maybe it was just a dog. Maybe a dog had panicked and gotten inside. _There’s an explanation for everything,_ she thought, trying to center herself. That was all: a dog, maybe mangy, maybe hit by a car and trying to seek shelter. She knew there was a first aid kit in the kitchen. She would find the animal, and then go get it, and try to help… she didn’t have an emergency animal hospital on speed dial, since Huc always took care of the cats, and she still didn’t speak enough Romanian to convey anything like this over the phone. _I’ll do it myself. How hard can it be?_

Her feet tapped lightly on the marble floors of the foyer as she neared the one source of light she could see: the doors of the study in the back were slightly ajar, and firelight streamed through. A sound like something huge breathing was inside, faint and hoarse. Rey got closer, holding the stand out in front of her like it was a sword. _What the hell is in there?_ Something with teeth. Something huge. A bear? A bobcat? She hoped the cats were safe in the scullery, because if this thing tried to eat one of them...

It was now or never. She took a huge breath and pushed the door open, swinging wildly, and saw a chaotic blur of snapping teeth and wild eyes and a _huge_ furry wet body coming right for her. Rey screamed, all the pent up terror exploding out, and fell on her ass, holding the wrought iron up to guard herself. “Fuck!” she screamed. “Stop, please, _stop—_ ”

The iron smacked lightly into the animal’s face as it lunged for her, and it instantly yelped like a kicked puppy and stumbled away, scrambling back to the carpet, writhing, and Rey sat up, shocked, and realized it was…

A wolf. Huge, black and gray, fur matted down on its sides with rainwater and blood, and it was cowering from _her,_ as if she was the scariest thing it had ever seen, and whimpering. 

“Oh, shit, shit,” said Rey, and dropped the toilet paper holder. “Hey, whoa.” _Eurasian wolf. Native to the Carpathian mountains. Big. Very big._ “Good boy. Are you a boy? A girl? I’m not gonna hurt you.” _What am I doing? I’m talking to a fucking wolf!_

It panted, tongue lolling out, and eased its way to the carpet, the blood-wet side facing up, and its sides heaved. A low, pathetic whine escaped its nose, and Rey stood. 

“You just… you stay there. I’m gonna get a first aid kit. And food. And water for you. Okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer, and why would she? It was a fucking wolf! She ran to the kitchen and grabbed the first aid kit from under the sink and a bowl of water, then hurried back to the study. _Solovei_ _is probably going to be pissy about the fur everywhere, but tough shit— that poor thing is hurting._ The wolf was still stretched out on the carpet, panting, and Rey set the water in front of its nose, then sat down cautiously by the huge, furry front leg. 

“Okay,” she said, firmly. “You better promise not to, uh, bite my head off, ‘cause I have a fiance who’s probably not gonna be thrilled if he comes home to that mess.”

A single yellow eye found hers, and it narrowed: the tail thumped once and went still. 

“Great,” said Rey. “What is this, a Disney film? I’m communicating with wolves? Hold still.” She got a gauze pad wet and dabbed it up by the worst of the blood, and the wolf growled, but didn’t snap at her or try to maul her, and that was a win. Maybe Eurasian wolves were really smart, like dogs. “It’s gonna be okay,” she said through her teeth, parting the thick coat and trying to peer down into the fur. A welling, deep puncture was visible, and she frowned, shining the flashlight down into the mess. Something metallic was shining in the blood, and she rummaged around for tweezers in the box. “Did you get cut on a barbed wire fence? You have something pretty big in there. Piece of metal?”

The wolf whined, the sound trailing off into a rumble, and Rey sighed, coming up with a pair of forceps. “This isn’t gonna be fun. I’m sorry. God, please don’t eat me.” She parted the fur and took a huge breath, silently praying that if the wolf snapped and mauled her, it would be fast, and then started digging in with the forceps. 

An explosive, hysterical snarling reverberated through the wolf’s body, but it didn’t move, just lay there, shaking, while she got the ends of the forceps latched around the metal and wiggled and pulled… and dropped the thing into her hand. It was a bullet. She didn’t know too much about guns specifically, but she definitely knew a bullet when she saw one. “Oh, shit,” she breathed, turning it over. “You run into some trouble with a farmer? Trying to eat someone’s sheep?”

A string of pathetically high-pitched vocalizations were all the answer she got, and then the wolf started trying to lick the bowl, a pale, foamy tongue reaching for the ceramic. “Hold on, let me get you patched up and I’ll get you water,” she said, and it whined while she plugged the bullet hole. She couldn’t tape the thing to its body, since it was covered in fur, and she didn’t have a razor, so she wound the gauze around its shoulder and arm to keep the bandage secure, and when she was satisfied with how it looked, she got around to the other side and lifted the wolf’s head carefully up, holding the bowl with her other hand.

It lapped up the water greedily and struggled forward a little, a massive shoulder weighing down onto her thighs. “You’re a big one,” Rey said, absently stroking the wolf’s forehead, between its ears. “Big girl? Boy? I bet you probably don’t want me looking between your legs to find out. Been through enough already, huh, what with the bullets and the storm.”

The wolf paid no attention and finished drinking, then sighed with gusto and lay down across her lap, eyes drifting shut. “Hey,” said Rey, patting its ears. “I’m about to get the circulation cut off to my freaking calves here. You’re too heavy.”

It opened a single yellow eye, sighed with what sounded like exasperation, and clumsily lifted itself up. Rey scooted out from under it and it lay back down, sides rising and falling, that eye fixed on her as she wiped her bloodstained hands on a paper towel she’d found in the kitchen. “God, Huc will kill me for getting so much blood into the carpet,” she muttered. “That’s if Solovei doesn’t get mad at me for the hair everywhere.”

The wolf snorted. Rey made a mental note to stop anthropomorphizing wild animals, because that was how tourists in Yellowstone got eaten by bears, but it was hard to feel like the wolf _didn’t_ understand her, especially when it struggled to its good front leg and whined as she started to leave, tail thumping heavily against the carpet.

“No, I’m coming back,” she assured it. “I just have to wash my hands. Promise.” 

It lay back down, chin resting on the carpet, and watched her go.

* * *

Rey scrubbed her arms to the elbows and watched the pink-stained suds drain down the sink. 

“I have a giant fucking wolf in the house,” she said, staring at the wall. “How am I going to get it out? Who knows. Who cares. I have blood all over me. Jesus _Christ._ ”

She went back out and down the hall with another bowl of water, and the wolf was waiting in the study. Its tail thumped again as she sat down cross-legged by it, and she patted it gently on the side. “Hey,” she said. “Go to sleep, okay? I’ll keep an eye on you. It’ll be fine.”

A deep, rumbly noise out of the wolf’s chest felt like it shook the whole room, and Rey leaned back against the upholstered chair, her hand resting in the thick, rough fur. She’d keep an eye on the wolf. It was so warm. So warm…

* * *

“What the _hell_ have you done?”

Rey jerked to wakefulness in a split second and sat up. She’d been lying on her side the carpet, and her attention was instantly directed to Huc, who stood, soaking wet and still wearing a raincoat, in the door of the study. He didn’t look angry, just… _terrified,_ if that was possible for such an unflappable man. “What?” she echoed, bleary-eyed. “What… time is it?” It was dim in the study. The fire had gone out.

“Almost five in the morning, Miss Keyner. What are you _doing_?”

Oh, right. Wolf, storm, study. Rey sighed. “I'm sorry, I know I'm in here without permissions, but it was thunderstorming last night. That poor wolf came in and it had been _shot,_ can you believe it? So I took out the bullet and tried to patch it up, and I guess I just fell asleep. I’m sorry about the mess. You can tell Conte Solovei that it’s all my fault, because it’s definitely not yours.”

His face changed. Something… cautious. Careful, as if he was hell-bent on a very, very particular outcome from this conversation. “I see. Come here. Stand up.”

“I should check…” Rey looked down at her hands, dried brown blood still ingrained into the creases and nails, and Huc slammed his hand against the doorframe, startling her into staring back up at him, mouth agape. He'd never so much as set a plat down roughly. “Wh—”

“I _said,_ stand up, Miss Keyner.” His pale green eyes were fixed directly on her, and he had a look on his face like if he could, he’d reel her to him with a fishing line. “Stand up. Do not make any sudden movements. Do not turn around. Stand up and come _here._ ”

“What is your _problem_?” she snapped. “I’ve about had it with this place. You don’t tell me anything, you order me around. And Solovei’s in the mafia, isn’t he?”

Terror gave way to complete bewilderment. “What? What are you talking about? Miss Keyner, you need to _stand up—”_

“I said I know he’s in the Romanian mafia! All the secret trips and the weird headlines and the money. Do you think I’m stupid?” Rey struggled to her feet, feeling exhausted. “And the wolf isn’t going to do anything to me. It wanted me to stay with it. I could… I don’t know. I could tell. It was smart.”

Huc’s voice was fracturing into panic. “ _Miss Keyner_ —”

“Look,” she started to say in frustration, turning toward the fireplace, “it’s just a _wolf—”_

She saw Huc’s face go even whiter than she thought possible, and the next thing she saw as she turned around and her eyes focused was a shape— no, not a shape, a body— sprawled out on the carpet before the fire. It was huge, probably seven feet long or more. She thought it might be human, but then she thought, _it can’t be human_ : no human had limbs covered in patterns of… were those scales? Feathers? _Spikes?_ She couldn’t make out the detail in the bad light. A head of long, black hair covered the face, and there was an uneven, uncanny-valley quality to the way the body lay. _Unreal. I’m not seeing this. It’s not real._ A coal-black hand as wide across as her waist twitched on the carpet, and she saw claws at the ends of the fingers. That got her to step back, and once she was stepping back, she couldn’t stop backing up until she slammed into Huc.

“What,” she choked, half-gasping, her eyes still fixed on the shape on the floor. “What… _is_ that?”

“That,” said Huc, sounding more exhausted than frightened, “is the Conte. If you are going to faint, please do it onto me, Miss Keyner, and not on the floor.”

“I’m not going to faint,” she said, even though her vision was going a little weird. “I… the wolf. Where… where’s…”

“There was no wolf,” said Huc. “There was never any wolf.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes still fixed on that nightmare lying on the ground. “No, there was a wolf, it was shot—”

“Look at his shoulder,” said Huc, and Rey forced herself to look at the thing again. There was a white blur in the gloom. _The bandage. The same one._ She couldn’t stop her knees from giving out, and buckled to the floor. Huc caught her and bolstered her up, escorting her out of the room as he firmly shut the door behind them.


	5. In Which Some but Not All Answers Are Given

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Huc said in the kitchen, an apron tied over his clothes as Rey sat, in shock, at the table. “The power went out last night in that storm. I had just gotten it started again when I saw the pawprints on the front steps…”

“Power,” Rey repeated through numb lips. Her hands were shaking. She checked her phone: full charge, but no signal and no WiFi. “Oh, my god.”  _ Power was out. That storm. Wolf. Thing?? _

_ My fiance is a fucking… thing. _

“I think you may need something a bit stronger than tea,” said Huc, and got a bottle of dark amber liquid down off the shelf. Brandy, probably, or whiskey. Rey closed her eyes.  _ It’s a nightmare. I’m just having a dream, like the one I had after I smoked that shitty weed with Rose. I’ll open my eyes and be in bed.  _ “Of course, you oughtn’t to have it on an empty stomach. Eggs?”

“I can’t eat,” she mumbled, burying her head in her hands. “I think I’d just hurl. What did you mean, there was no wolf, if you saw the footprints?”

Huc sighed and reached for the flour. “I meant that the creature you nursed last night  _ looked _ like a wolf, Miss Keyner. It was not a wolf. Much like the cat you met on the first night you arrived, or the man you met in the study.”

“Wait,” interrupted Rey. “The cat— the cat was a fake cat?”

“The cat was the Conte,” said Huc, stirring in buttermilk. “Pancakes?”

Rey struggled to understand. “So the— so Solovei can, what— are you telling me he can shapeshift or something? Because that’s, that’s fucking  _ crazy _ , that’s not possible.” She gripped her cell phone again.  _ If I can just hold on to one solid thing, I won’t lose my mind. _

“You would be surprised at the things you take for granted on a daily basis that people at one point believed impossible,” said Huc, still stirring. He tapped the spoon and reached for vanilla extract. “The object in your hands is, in primitive terms, chunks of metal with lightning trapped inside that someone else has taught how to communicate in a way you can understand. Is that really the most impossible thing you’ve seen in your life?”

Rey let go of her phone. “But what… what  _ is _ he?”

Huc made a humming sound and finished the batter, turning to the griddle. “He was once a man,” he said. “One of the finest warriors among the Dacians, as far as I could make out.” The kettle whistled, and he neatly took it off and poured her tea before turning back to the stove. “But I suppose he had his own sins… for when he was killed in battle against the invading Romans, he did not stay dead.”

“Oh, sure,” said Rey, heart pounding. “Right. Because people just rise from the grave all the time. That’s normal. That’s totally possible.”

“As if death isn’t a wide spectrum of various stages. What are they teaching you in schools these days? I’m sure you can think of some explanation,” said Huc coolly, pouring out batter in a sizzle. “Regardless: he crawled out of his grave and spent the next… oh, shall we approximate and say five hundred years in hiding?”

“So he’s a vampire,” said Rey instantly.

“Vampire,” scoffed Huc, flipping the pancakes. “He eats like any other living creature, Miss Keyner: he has no need for blood.”

“Then what— what is he? Because that thing, that— that thing laying on the floor back in there was  _ not _ anything I have a name for,” she demanded, “and I honestly don’t even know if I want to know what the hell it was.”

Huc shrugged. “Why do you ask for a name, then?”

“To— I don’t know, to get answers.”

“To categorize,” he said, sliding the fresh, steaming pancakes onto a china plate. “Humanity must name everything, must put everything under the sun into neat little boxes, labelled and shut. Life is not so organized. Life is… messy, and things blur into each other, and some things defy description.  _ Strigoi, pricolici, moroi _ : who needs a name when you have the thing before you?” He handed Rey her tea, and she sipped at it without thinking. The heat felt wonderful in her cold hands. 

She took a breath and tried to think of another question. “So what… what does he do? I mean, what… he can obviously turn into animals. And what did you mean when you said the man I met wasn’t real?”

“Not quite that… simplistic. Did you think he would choose to sleep in the form you saw in the study? He chose that human shape to meet you in,” said Huc. “It is the face he once possessed as a man himself. I confess I was intrigued. Usually he chooses a more… well, appealing visage when he meets people. He was very worried that you might not like it, and second-guessed himself all morning. And should the subject ever arise again, you did not hear that from  _ me _ , Miss Keyner.” He pointed his spatula at her.

Well, he hadn’t been unappealing, Rey could say that. “I liked the way he looked just fine. So you’re saying his normal everyday look is… giant thing with claws, and everything else is like…how does he change? Like, does he change physically? I know I felt fur when I petted that cat, and the wolf, but...”

“What is the physical but an illusion?" asked Huc, very philosophically. He handed her her breakfast and splashed a generous amount of brandy into her tea, and Rey began to eat. The pancakes were admittedly very, very good. “You can trick a mind into thinking it’s touching anything, really. To _truly_ change physically is an extraordinary amount of matter and mass conversion, energy expended, all that: he  _ can _ change physically, but it often leaves him drained.”

“Oh, now we’re talking about science,” said Rey, her mouth full of pancakes. “I thought we were talking about magic.”

“They are quite often one and the same,” Huc said. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

“Well, my perspective is telling me that  _ you’re _ definitely more than you’re letting on,” muttered Rey. “You look like a vampire straight out of Twilight.”

Huc snorted. “I am not sure if I should be flattered or not.” He went to the cupboard and pulled down a thick, knitted blanket, draping it about her shoulders with a near-clinical professionalism. “Drink your tea. How are your nerves?”

Rey managed a smile. “Better. So, you’re saying… he can influence how people see him, not shapeshift. But he can shapeshift. Sometimes. Anything else?”

“Mm. Extraordinary strength, I should say, and speed, and an inability to die.”

Rey blinked. “He… he can’t die? Not even, like, stake to the heart?”

“No,” said Huc. “Believe me, he had a crisis over it for about a century and a half, and then when the Industrial Revolution began, he forgot all about it. Started trying to build his own steam engine. Although lately he has become more lost in thought on the matter… and when I say lately I mean in the past half a century.”

“You’ve been working for him since the eighteen-hundreds?” asked Rey, raising her eyebrows as high as they could go. “Holy shit.”

“Seventeen fifty-eight, precisely, Miss Keyner.”

“Well, whatever you are, you don’t look a day over a hundred and eight,” said Rey, sipping her tea.

Huc preened a little. “You are very kind.”

The door to the kitchen opened, and Rey turned to look, half-terrified for a second that she’d see that massive thing lurking in the doorway… but it was only Solovei, wearing a black turtleneck sweater as thick as armor, and he was staring at them both with an indecipherable expression. Then she remembered what Huc had said about illusions, and suppressed a shudder: this was the face of a man who had been dead for two thousand years. “Good... morning,” Rey said, completely lost as to what you were supposed to say when your fiance was pretending he wasn’t a seven foot tall thing with claws.

He blinked at her, as if remembering himself. “Good morning, Miss Keyner. Huc.”

“Conte,” said Huc serenely.

“May I speak to my fiancee. Alone.” There was no question in that voice at all, and Huc immediately stood and left, shutting the door behind him.

Rey sat on her stool, clutching the blanket around her shoulders. Solovei just stood there, gazing at her like he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. “Please don’t kill me,” she whispered, idiotically. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I’m sorry I saw you. Not even my friends back home. I couldn’t text them anyway. The WiFi is out.”

“Kill— I will do no such thing,” he said, sounding shocked at the very idea. “I came to thank you for the task you took upon yourself last night.” He reached up with a pale, thick hand and touched his side, just under the armpit. “I am nearly as good as healed.”

“Why were you shot at?” she demanded, fingers clamped so tightly around the teacup that she thought it might break. “Who was shooting you?”

He looked away. “Mm. A long story. Suffice it to say, when one is possessed of the… abilities I have, one tends to use them to assist, not to destroy: I ran afoul of some men who were very angry at my interference, and so sustained this wound. I thought once I got inside the house… perhaps an animal would be more your taste, should you stumble upon me: less panic than this human form would cause. You… you seemed to like the cat.”

“Oh,” she said, swallowing. “I… I thought whatever came in the front door didn’t look like a wolf.”

“No,” he said, dry and soft, and looked down, absently rubbing his thumb across his wrist. “I… I expect you will want to return home.”

“What?” Rey jerked her head up. “I didn’t say that.”

“You…” Solovei looked stunned. “You wish to stay?”

“I mean.” Rey took a deep breath and tried to think. It wasn’t like him being a giant freaky thing was going to drive her away from the place, not since she knew he was a decent person, and besides… “Look. I can’t go back to New York and couch surf after… all this. Because this country is really nice. Free healthcare, gorgeous scenery, good food. What I’m saying is, I’d… I’d like to stay a little longer. But you— if you still want me to marry you, then you have to not lie to me about things, okay?”

“Things,” echoed Solovei. “Yes. I heard you speaking about the Romanian mafia, and I may have… glanced at your notebook.”

“You read my notes?” Rey demanded, flushing to the roots of her hair.

He looked completely impassive. “Yes. They were amusing. Including the little anecdote concerning tattoos.”

She set the teacup down. “Oh, my god. Okay, boundaries, let’s talk about boundaries. I don’t even know how you got into my room to read my dumb stuff, but don’t read my stuff, please.”

“It wasn’t dumb. You were very perceptive.” 

And, okay, that made her feel a little warm and lightheaded: a compliment coming from some kind of eldritch creature like him, but maybe it was just the brandy. “Thanks. Still don’t want you reading my diary. People need to be alone sometimes.”

“I… must confess to another transgression, then,” he muttered, shifting his weight as he sat in a chair heavily. “I visited you in your room the first night you were here. I was very curious to see you.”

“You— oh, my god. I thought you were a ghost. Were you the ghost?” Her cheeks flamed with heat. “Dude! I wasn’t wearing anything but  _ underwear _ —”

“Yes, I know,” he said, a flush creeping up his high cheeks. “I realized my mistake as soon as I saw you, and hid myself when you woke. I must say, you possessed great courage. In the old days, a prayer would be said to ward off a spirit. Now, the young bellow profane words.”

“How did you hide?”

He shrugged. “I have the ability to walk unseen where I wish.”

Rey blinked. “Invisible. You can  _ turn invisible _ ?”

“Yes. It’s not hard if you know what you’re doing with light. Any further questions?”

“Yeah. I still don’t know why you wanted a marriage of convenience, unless you really are Dracula and this was all an elaborate plot to suck my blood.”

He tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow. “Miss Keyner, if I wanted to savage you, I could have done it already a hundred times over.”

She really, really should not have drunk that brandy. Every part of her body tingled at the mental image of  _ being savaged,  _ although in her mind, it was less “gore and violence” and more... “Okay,” she said, banishing  _ those _ traitorous, weird thoughts from her mind. “You’re really not going to tell me what it is that I have to do to… keep all this.”

“Do?” he echoed.

“Yes! Nobody just gives people stuff like this for nothing.” Rey felt tears gathering in her eyes, and her hands were shaking. “You don’t understand. When people give you things, it means they want something in return. Always. The last time anyone gave me anything, I was seventeen, it was a pair of knockoff Beats headphones, and he wanted me to— to—” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t make herself say it. Guilt choked up in her throat, and she bent her head, trying so hard not to cry in front of Solovei, because men didn’t want women who ugly cried in their kitchens, even if the man was a zillion year old monster and the relationship was all a sham for convenience.

He stumbled up and out of the chair so fast she almost missed it, and before she knew what was happening she was being turned in her seat and Solovei was kneeling on the floor at her feet, head almost in her lap. “Don’t cry,” he pleaded, looking completely at a loss as to what he should do. “Please don’t cry, Miss Keyner. What can I do? Shall I be the cat? You liked the cat; he made you smile.”

“Oh, god,” she choked, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said. Beebee came purring out of the dark and wound around his back, and he didn’t even move. “I am the one who should apologize. It should have been clear from the start that this was not an arrangement where I expected anything from you apart from your occasional company. You… you have seen what I truly am. That is a burden enough to itself. I would not demand anything else.”

“I didn’t really see you,” she said, sniffling. “I mean… it was dark in the study.”

“A fact for which I am grateful,” he said darkly. 

“Could you… could you show me? Just, really quick?” Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought she might throw up. “I just want to see you. The real you.”

His lips fell open in an expression of shock. “You  _ ask _ to see me without a glamour?”

“Yes, I— I want to know how it works, the illusion, the glamour, if that’s what you call it.” She braced herself against the table. “See, I’ll hold on tight. I can take it. If I faint, though, you have to carry me dramatically upstairs to my room.”

Solovei stood, as if weighing his options, and moved back a few paces. “Nobody has ever asked to see me without the illusion,” he said flatly. “But if you ask it…”

“I do. Ask it. Yeah.”  _ Oh, god, oh god, it’s going to be awful… _ but she  _ had _ to see what this was, what she was fully getting herself into.  _ Informed consent. Right? Right.  _

“As you wish,” he said, sounding very withdrawn, and something  _ prickled _ . The hair on the back of Rey’s neck stood up, like the walls had become charged with electricity. Goosebumps prickled up her arms, and two things happened at the same time.

First, the perfectly normal-looking, solid man with black hair and a sweater completely vanished into a swirl of black mist, and second, a huge creature seemed to step out of thin air, just behind where Solovei had been standing. Rey jumped, because she hadn’t been expecting  _ that,  _ but then she made herself look at the creature.

Over seven feet tall, easily: its head was a few inches from the eight-foot ceiling, and it looked… completely surreal. Rey made herself catalog every detail. Feet: huge, ending in claws, almost dog-shaped, coal-black. Legs: very thick, very long, coated in black fur that was longer around his ankles and shins, and they seemed to be able to bend back at the knee, like a quadruped, even though he was standing on two legs. His body was pale with reddish, textured markings in geometric, strange patterns over his skin, and solid as a house, the bare skin showing from his chest to his hips, and a very thick patch of black hair grew from the navel down to between his legs— Rey realized suddenly he was naked, which was a little surprising, but then… he didn’t seem to have genitals, so that was fine. Totally fine. 

His huge arms were also relatively hairless, except from the elbow to the fingertips, where they were furred in the same short, glossy black pelt his legs were, and the fingers on the hands ended in talons that gleamed, wicked sharp, in the light from the kitchen window. His throat was…  _ ruffed,  _ she guess, not having a better word for that, in what looked like thick, black downy feathers, and his face, while remaining relatively more human-looking than the rest of him and definitely resembling the human-shaped glamour he’d used all the time in front of her, was put off by the eyes: surrounded by a reddish natural pigmentation, same as the markings on his body, and completely solid black where the whites should be, the irises bright coppery-gold. The hair was long, almost to his waist, and tangled like crazy, but the bandage she’d plastered on him last night was still in place, and stained dark red with dried blood.

“Turn… turn around,” she said, throat feeling insanely dry. “I want to see all of you, if that’s okay.”

He nodded and obeyed, slowly turning to profile, then back. Rey saw that his back had two crests of thick fur, coarse and black and mixed with feathers, and that the backs of his arms sported a thick line of black fur, along with the backs of his thighs. “You do not seem... afraid,” he ventured, his face to the wall. His voice had stayed the same, mostly, but there was a stranger quality to it. Like… it was softer, more flexible than the filtered voice she heard when he used his human form, but richer, darker. 

“I’m… not,” she said, and was shocked to find that she wasn’t, not really, not now that she had gotten used to him. “Your knees… do they bend forward, or backward?”

“Both,” he said, and demonstrated by turning and dropping to all fours easily, the knees bending back, then standing back up, knees bending forward into place. He turned to look at her as if he was waiting for her comment, and Rey nodded.

“Cool,” she said, and Solovei seemed to visibly relax. “Your eyes…”

“Ah,” he said, and lowered his gaze. “Yes. Very light-sensitive. Very wide spectrum of light visible. I did say I was a nocturnal creature.” He offered a half-smile, lifting the corner of his mouth up slightly.

“They kind of look like a cat’s. Do they glow like a cat’s?” she asked, fascinated. 

He paused. “I’m not sure. You could shine a light at them and see.”

Rey picked up a flashlight from the counter where Huc had left it, switched it on, and aimed the dim yellow beam at Solovei’s eyes. Immediately, the dilated pupil in the center of his eyes turned bright, glowing red, and she shrieked and dropped the flashlight. It clattered to the floor, and Solovei jumped, startled. “No! Oh, god, I’m sorry. They’re  _ red _ _!_ Bright red, like brake lights, and it’s, you know, the— oh, Jesus. I’m sorry. Imagine someone stumbling across you in a dark field. They’d have the shit scared out of them.”

“Yes, that has happened quite often,” he said, and offered another close-mouthed, tight smile.

“Is… okay, you’re going to think this is rude, but… do you have fangs? Because I just realized I’ve never actually seen your teeth.” Rey picked the flashlight back up and set it on the table.

“Fangs? Like a cat? No. I… well. No, I do not. I simply— I—” Solovei was flustered, actually  _ flustered,  _ this seven foot something monster man. “If you must know, my teeth are not… ideal.”

“What? Like, rotting out of your head? They don’t have dental care in Romania?”

“No, nothing like that, only...” He sighed as if there was no getting around it and lifted his lips, baring his teeth to her, and she saw that he was sporting the  _ cutest _ crooked teeth she’d ever seen. His front incisors were long and flat, and there was a little gap between his shorter secondaries and his eyeteeth, which were a little long, but he definitely did not have fangs. 

“You’re self conscious about  _ that _ ?” she asked, disbelieving. “Your teeth are fine.”

“Oh. You think so?” It was hard to read his moods, but Rey could have sworn he sounded a little flattered. “Well, then.”

She decided to change the subject. “So the glamour… you just kind of, um, project that? Like in front of you, while you’re turning yourself invisible. But the wolf last night… that was you, really you?”

“Yes, in summary. Like so.” He vanished, and suddenly Human Solovei was standing there, looking almost small compared to the creature that had been looming over her a moment ago. “You see?” he said, spreading his arms. “Almost no effort, compared to changing my skin. I slept for almost eight hours last night. I am still tired, to tell you the truth.”

“And when I touch the glamour…” Rey extended a hand and let her finger rest on the sleeve of the sweater Solovei’s human illusion was wearing. It felt as real as anything, as real as standing in a department store and thumbing through sweaters. “That’s… I’m not actually touching anything?”

“You are not,” said Solovei, looking down at her impassively. 

_ Wild.  _ “Okay. So you’re casting it. Can you feel it when I touch the glamour?”

He shifted a little. “Yes, in a way, as if… as if someone is laying a hand on me through a thick blanket. It is the same when I wear another form. Pressure, but no real detail of feeling, or at least I don’t think so. Nobody has touched my un-glamoured self in almost two thousand years: fear keeps all at bay.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry. Are you uncomfortable?” She took her hand away from his arm— not  _ his _ arm, she corrected herself, the arm of the illusion. 

“No. I find myself at a loss as to how to judge your reaction. You are not afraid.”

“I mean, I’m a little afraid.” She shook her head and gestured at the man standing in the middle of the floor. “See, now that I know  _ this _ guy isn’t real, it’s just weird. I feel like a little kid talking to a puppet. I’d rather talk to you.”

“As you wish,” he said, and the human Solovei vanished into that dark swirl again, the real Solovei reappearing where he’d been all along, standing quietly in the corner of the kitchen. “Have you any further questions?”

Rey swallowed. That was going to be an adjustment. “Hi again. Um. Not… not for right now. But could you… maybe, um, since you’re home again, you could just… go around inside without feeling like you have to pretend to be something else. Of course, when the cleaning people are here, you can be human-guy Solovei, but when it’s just me, I don’t think I’ll mind the real you as much as I thought I would.”

“You… you don’t?” he asked, baffled. “Ah. You don’t. All right. Yes, I can… I can do that.”

“Shake on it?” she asked, extending her hand to him boldly. 

He eyed her palm, then stepped forward, very carefully and lightly closing his black, clawed fingers around her palm, and Rey… hadn’t realized the surface of his palm would be so soft, like velvet, short and close on her fingers. Solovei’s breath caught in his throat, his hand suddenly trembling as he drew away from the touch. “Ah,” he muttered, staring at her with wide black eyes. “That…”

He looked like maybe someone had just beat him over the head. Rey frowned. “Are you okay?”

“I… I am very tired,” he said, seeming to catch himself. “I will go and rest in the study.”

“Okay. I’ll be… around,” she trailed off as he left the kitchen, ducking his head to get under the arch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- BIG MAN!!! KINDA SCARY!! BIG VOICE!! LONG HAIR!! MONSTER CLAWS!! MAKES MY BRAIN GO SEROTONIN!!!  
> -im TRYING to update every day haha fuck im sorry  
> \- solovei: wh-what if w-we h-held hands and... o fuck.... too intimate


	6. In Which Rey Discovers Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for nonconsensual voyeurism and uhhhhh inappropriate use of a glamour 👀

The next week was… probably the strangest in Rey’s whole life. Huc was unfailingly polite and went out of his way to get her new pajamas, since the old ones were bloodstained: he brought her as much McDonald’s as she wanted and made coffee in the French press and even bought her new underwear, which was admittedly appreciated because her old ones really were falling apart. 

Solovei remained reclusive, especially for the first couple of days, but invited Rey to the study one night. She wasn’t sure what he wanted exactly, and maybe he didn’t know either, but he had a tea tray waiting, and she just… sat by the fire, sipping Earl Grey and reading his first edition copy of ‘Four Quartets’ while he puttered around, seven and a half feet tall, messing with old radiators and watching her out of the corners of his golden eyes, as if he wasn’t sure she was real.

The night following, he asked her to read to him, so she did. 

The night after that, he entertained her by casting glamours of famous movie stars and pretending to let her interview them, and Rey couldn’t help but laugh, blushing, when Marilyn Monroe flashed bedroom eyes at her. The image vanished, and there was Solovei, grinning in delight at having made her laugh, every white, crooked tooth gleaming.

He started hanging around her more. He took her into the garden, showed her the flowers, talked her ear off about the best way to make sure the roses were in bloom: he even ventured into town with her once or twice to go shopping (wearing his human disguise, obviously) and found himself captivated by the Apple store. She practically had to drag him away from the place. At home, she baked him lemon bars, which he pronounced delicious, and kept sneaking them when he thought she wasn’t looking.

She got on Amazon, even, and reset her mailing address as Solovei’s PO box at the local post office, and showed him how to shop online. He was thrilled, and immediately ordered binoculars, sidewalk chalk, four surge protectors, and a pair of sunglasses. When he wasn’t looking, Rey sneaked back on and ordered a Three Wolf Moon T-shirt in a size 3XL, hoping it would fit him.

When it all arrived, she picked it up at the post office and ran it back up to the house, beaming as she thrust the box containing the shirt at Solovei, who was already unboxing the surge protectors very carefully, examining them with great interest. “What is that?” he asked eagerly, looking at the box. “The chalk? Has it arrived, too?”

“No, I got you something! A present.” She grinned and watched as he carefully punctured the packing tape with a single razor-sharp claw, dragging his finger down the seam to slice it open, unfolded the cardboard, and pulled out the shirt. “You like it?”

“What…” He held it up, seemingly astounded at what he was looking at. “The colors have such detail. These are wolves, yes?”

Rey had to laugh at the expression on his face. “Yes! Because of the wolf, you know, your wolf. Do you like it?”

Solovei immediately put it on over his head, shoving his arms through the sleeves, and pulled it over his chest. It just hit his hips, and was stretched taut across his broad torso, but he looked thrilled. “I  _ adore _ it, Miss Keyner. Thank you.” She thought for a moment his eyes were getting a little misty, but he turned away and sniffled for a moment, then hurried to the mirror on the wall to see how he looked while Rey smothered her laughter at the sight of him.

* * *

There was only one thing… slightly off, that confused her. He never touched her. Not even once, never in his real form— if he touched her, it was always with his human-looking glamour, (which she’d started calling a fetch in her own mind: nothing like a weird doppelganger to make a relationship interesting) and not  _ him _ : a gentle hand to the small of her back to guide her somewhere, a brush to get crumbs off her shoulder. That was all she got. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted? A sexless, aromantic marriage, for nothing but convenience and money?

Except now… Rey wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted. She was starting to have dreams almost every night, bizarre dreams of a kind she’d never had before, dreams where she was wandering, being followed, being caught up by huge arms… and she would always wake up before anything interesting happened, and every time she woke up she was more turned on than she’d ever been in her life. It was like some virulent form of turbo-horniess, her whole body raring to go, and she hated it.

_ It’s this fucking place, _ she thought, gulping water down at three in the morning, the room pitch black.  _ It’s getting to me. Castles and ghosts and monsters. Something about… no, my wires are totally crossed.  _ She groaned out loud. A blinding headache was worming its way into her temple, and she rubbed her fingers into the spot. Well, maybe some tea would do her good. 

Rey made her way down into the kitchen, putting the kettle on and resting her head on her hands as she waited for it to boil. Huc had gone home, probably, and Solovei was lurking wherever he lurked at night, so it was just her in the kitchen, alone. Even more annoying, she was still aroused, way too aroused to handle a headache at the same time.  _ If I rub one out, maybe that’ll get rid of the headache.  _ She stood, looking up and down the table. No comfortable place to really sit without having to brace herself, but if she sat on the table with a towel or something under her… Rey hoisted herself up and leaned back, pressing the heel of her free hand to her groin. That felt  _ great _ . She sighed and settled in for a good, quick— 

The door creaked open. Rey spluttered and almost fell off the table, but a pair of arms caught her: human arms, bare arms, in a plain gray T-shirt that seemed to be straining to contain them. “Miss Keyner?” asked Solovei’s fetch, easing her off the table. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, god,” she muttered, so embarrassed she couldn’t look him in the eye. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Why were you—” The fetch paused, frowning, and disappeared suddenly, revealing the real Solovei, standing a little closer than she had thought he was comfortable with. The wide nostrils flared. “You… oh. You are about to ovulate. I apologize.” He stepped back.

“You can  _ smell _ that?” she asked, shocked. “I mean, me? Ovulating?”

“Yes. I can smell a good deal more things that ordinary…” His expression changed to surprise as he sniffed again, the black eyes narrowing, the long black claws tightening into a fist. “Oh.  _ Oh.  _ My deepest apologies. You are in a state of— I should not be here.” He stepped away.

“A state— oh,  _ god _ ,” said Rey, really humiliated now. “No, it’s not your fault. I’ve been having the weirdest dreams and I keep waking up, um, like this. And I have a pounding headache. I thought, uh, taking matters into my own hands would make it better.” She couldn’t even look at him. “I’m so sorry, I was sitting on the table and it probably reeks, I’ll— I’ll wash it.”

“Reeks? It does not smell foul. Why would you wash it?”

“It— you don’t think it smells weird?” Rey paused, baffled. “It… every guy I was ever, um, I mean, I got told a lot that it smelled… bad. Down there.”

“Children,” Solovei said, sounding dismissive. “There is nothing strange about the scent of a healthy human. You should have been around in the fourteenth century. No running water, no plumbing, no soap, hardly any bathing. If anything reeked…” He wrinkled his nose to illustrate his distaste.

She had to smile at that. “Well, um. Just in case, I’ll wipe it down.”

“Wait,” he said, quick and sudden, almost fearfully. She froze. “Please, let me know if you need… anything at all.”

“For…?” she breathed, half-panicked. What was he offering? Where was this relationship going?

“For— for your times of the month,” said Solovei, so flustered that his furry ruff was twitching. “You mentioned… Cool Ranch Doritos?”

She flushed. “Oh. That. No, Huc has it covered. He bought me stuff in town. Thank you, though.”

“Huc,” he said, in a low, petulant growl that really should  _ not _ have made her even hornier. “I see. Very well.”

“Wait—” Rey could barely breathe as Solovei halted, looking at her with those big, black, shining eyes. “Wait. I…”  _ Please, please, I swear I’ll never ask for anything ever again if you just throw me over your shoulder and do whatever you want to me, you can use your glamour in any form you want, even Margot Robbie if you want, I’m so turned on it fucking hurts—  _ But they’d made an agreement: a fake marriage, living together like friends only, not… “No, no, I’m sorry. Never mind. It’s not— it’s fine.”

“Something Huc could help you with, no doubt,” he said, and disappeared.

* * *

The next week and a half was brutal. He went out of his way to avoid both her and Huc, and she was not invited into the study at all, not even when she baked lemon bars and garnished them with lavender. Huc had to help her eat them all. Rey mostly spent her time kicking around in the garden, exploring the library, and regretting ever thinking about sex and Solovei in the same sentence.  _ Clearly he’s not into it, or me, because… I mean, shit, I’m like a kid to him. I’m twenty-five and he’s two thousand. Twitter would absolutely call that a toxic age difference.  _

She could not, however, get the mental image of his shaking, black, clawed hand after he’d grasped hers in the kitchen the first day he’d revealed himself to her.  _ He hasn’t been touched in so long. He’s probably never touched at all. Barely, unless he and Huc have something going on behind the scenes I haven’t caught onto yet—  _ which was unlikely, since Rey prided herself on her Gay Detection Array: living around Greenwich for a while after high school had honed it like a surgeon’s blade. 

If he could vaguely feel sensations through his fetch, then… technically, she thought, scribbling in her notebooks, technically since they weren’t  _ actually _ touching, they wouldn’t be doing anything they’d agreed to  _ not _ do to each other. She might ask,  _ so hey, Solovei, I know you aren’t into me in a sexy kind of way, but good holy fuck do I need to get off, so could you maybe kinda sorta just bloop your illusion onto me, preferably naked, and let me get my kicks?  _ He wouldn’t be involved, not really. Rey wondered what he would do if she kissed him. She had an embarrassing number of intrusive thoughts about it on a day to day basis.  _ I could storm into the study and ask him to kiss me. I could… slip by him in the kitchen and maybe get him up against the table. Maybe he would be angry. Maybe he’d be into it. Maybe he’d kiss me back…  _

Rey scribbled over the sentence. What was  _ wrong _ with her? She never fantasized about  _ kissing  _ people, unless it was in the context of actors or some game of truth or dare where she got asked  _ so if you had to make out for seven minutes and your choices were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Angelina Jolie… _ Clearly this place was fucking with her brain.

_ Or maybe it’s not. Maybe I just… maybe I.... _

No. That was not a possibility. “You’re not romantic,” she told herself in the mirror. “You’re not. You’re  _ not. _ ” 

Except… she could be. Romantic. Even sexual. But only specifically, it seemed, for a seven-foot-seven-inch Thing living in the house with claws and fur and glowing red eyes. 

_ What in the god damn fucking hell is wrong with me? _

* * *

Emboldened by her journey of self-discovery, which had really just consisted of frantically rubbing herself off in her bedroom to the thought of a specific, gigantic body, thick black fur, and talons, Rey sneaked down to the study one Saturday night in mid June.

Uninvited.

Quietly, she crept into a dark, dusty corner, near his prized collection of antique curios, and crouched down. She knew he came in here in the evenings and didn’t leave until the morning, so if she had to spend all night in here to catch him and talk to him, it would be worth the drastic measure of blatantly disobeying his request to enter by invitation only.

Under cover of darkness, she had time to get piping mad.  _ I told him we needed to talk to each other and work out stuff and not keep secrets or lie! What does he think he’s doing, ignoring me?  _ She was so hyped up on her own outrage that she almost missed when the door to the study burst open, but froze in her seat. Rey knew how to be quiet: years of dealing with foster parents so exhausted and frazzled that they’d pop you upside the head for breathing wrong had been an excellent teacher in the art of Shutting the Fuck Up. 

Solovei stormed into the room, definitely looking every inch of his seven and a half feet tall, and snapped his fingers, muttering. The fire blazed to life, and Rey’s eyes widened: she hadn’t known he could do that. He was paying no attention to the fire, just pacing, back and forth, growling incoherently to himself, and finally stopped in front of the mohair couch, the long, sharp claws flexing at the ends of his fingers. 

“ _ La dracu cu ea, _ ” he muttered, and flung himself down on the sofa, which creaked under his considerable weight. His shoulders hunched, and she couldn’t really see what he was doing, since his back was to her, but he was totally silent for a brief moment… then his breath came in a couple of short, stunted gasps, and she knew  _ instantly _ what he was doing. Her skin prickled: she hadn’t meant to see this at  _ all,  _ but now she was burning with curiosity… how was he doing that if he didn’t have genitals?

“Miss Keyner,” he moaned in a voice gone as low and heavy as syrup, and oh, oh, holy shit,  _ holy shit _ . Rey could not move. She was paralyzed. She wanted the floor to eat her alive. “Miss…  _ Rey _ , Rey—” Her name twisted off into a little whine, and there was another gasp, deep and gravelly, as if he couldn’t get a deep enough breath. He was bracing himself against something she couldn’t see, and that was when the fetch materialized close to his knees … and it was shaped like  _ her. _

Rey could only gape in shock as her doppelganger, dressed in the yellow dress she’d worn when she’d first come in here, stepped back and twirled in a circle lazily, smiling flirtatiously at Solovei. “Hi,” she said, and was that what her voice sounded like? What the  _ fuck?  _ " Vien—” at least, that’s what Rey thought she said— “I touched myself on the kitchen table, and it was so wet…”

“I know,” he moaned, throaty and dark, his head thrown back. “Oh, oh, God, I know. I smelled it...”

“Tell me how I smell,  _ inima mea _ ,” whispered the fetch, soft and seductive in a way Rey was pretty sure she’d never sounded a day in her life.

“Like the earth, like salt and rainwater and iron, iron that burns things like me…” He was choking up, the quick movements of his arm speeding as he leaned forward. “Please, Rey. Let me see…”

The doppelganger untied the neck of her dress, pulling it open, and Rey was absolutely stunned to see a perfect replica of her right tit exposed to the air of the study, down to the freckle near the underside. Solovei let out a whimper and—

Rey’s ass was numb. She tried to quietly shift her position, to get a better view, but she couldn’t feel her left leg, and toppling sideways in a moment of heart-stopping panic, she crashed into an old crate, scuffing her cheek on the wood and landing on the rug with a cry as an antique lace tablecloth fell off the cabinet and onto her head and shoulders.  The next thing she saw was Solovei, huge and shocked, standing over her, yanking the lace away in a clawed, massive hand as her heart pounded a mile a minute and her mouth went dry as all the ashes in the fireplace.


	7. In Which Rey Discovers Even More Things And We Earn Our E Rating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: oral sex on both a male and a female. no facefucking or choking involved. also some funky illusion based sex adventures!

“You’re hurt,” was the first thing Solovei said after dropping the tablecloth. 

Rey clapped a hand to her bruised cheek, struggled to her feet, and backed into the cabinets behind her.  _ He’s gonna eat me. Kill me.  _ “I’m so— I didn’t— I—”

He reached for her, but stopped himself halfway to her arm, and suddenly Solovei was gone and his human fetch was standing there in a long-sleeved navy shirt: smaller, less terrifying, but no less intimidating. “Come,” he said, and closed his pale fingers around Rey’s wrist. “Let me get you a bandage.”

“I’m fine, I’m not bleeding.” Rey let him help her out of the mess anyway, face so hot she thought it might burn off, and withdrew her wrist as soon as she was standing free of the clutter, backing up again. What the hell was she supposed to say to him? “I— I know I’m not supposed to be in here, I’m sorry—”

“You certainly are not,” he said darkly, whirling away and stalking toward the fireplace. “I would be at ease if you would forget what you have seen.”

“Oh, like I’m gonna forget  _ that _ anytime soon.” Righteous indignation was bubbling up again, and she followed the fetch to the sofa. “Hey! Hold on. I may have come in here without being asked, but  _ you _ were— you were jacking off with  _ my body _ . My fake magic body, maybe, but my body!”

He turned around, and he was so red in the face that she almost paused in her step. “I am sorry you saw it. It was not my intention. But these are  _ my rooms, _ Miss Keyner, and you intruded.”

“You shouldn’t be using me to— to—” Rey stopped talking.  _ I’m a big fat hypocrite. Holy shit. Haven’t I been rubbing ‘em out all over my room thinking about him? How is what he’s doing any different? Aside from the fact that I don’t have magic powers—  _

_ Wait, holy shit. He… he’s sexually into me. Is he? He— _

“To what, Miss Keyner?” He was waiting for her to continue, eyes narrowed.

Rey couldn’t speak. “Nothing. I— it’s fine. I’m… I’m not upset, actually. Or, at least, I shouldn’t be, not over this, because I guess, um, I guess the feeling’s mutual.”

Solovei didn’t really react to that, not in a way that mattered. She was expecting him to suddenly  _ realize _ , to step closer, to maybe kiss her (fetch or no fetch, she honestly didn’t care) but what he did was very slowly turn away and look at the fire. “You have every right to be upset with me.”

Had he not heard her? “No, I mean… I am. But I’m also not.”

“You should be furious,” he said softly, barely heard over the cracking flames. “You should…”

“Did you miss the part where I said the feeling is mutual?”

He turned back to her, looking very reserved. “You are kind to lie to protect my feelings and soften the—”

“Oh, my god, Solovei.” Rey dragged her hands down her face. “I’m trying to tell you that I touch myself _all the time_ to you. I think about you, I— I can’t stop, and that’s not normal for _me,_ you know, I never… I never get _this_ into thinking about anyone. It’s just you.”

Solovei’s fetch remained exactly where he was, hands at his sides, staring at her. He didn’t move for so long that Rey thought maybe the illusion had powered down, the real Solovei having totally checked out. “Miss Keyner,” he finally said, lips barely moving. “I— this—”

She tried to stop herself from interrupting, but couldn’t. “I know, I know, we— you wanted a marriage of convenience, I wanted a marriage of convenience. I know we agreed on that, on those terms. I just. You know. I just wanted you to know why I wasn’t—”

The fetch took a step toward her, which made her heart just about jump into her throat. “You are being truthful with me?”

Rey tried to catch her thoughts. “Yeah. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

The illusion was blurring at the edges with the force of his emotions, barely holding itself together. “Do you want… what do you want? Anything, Miss Keyner. I will give you anything.” His voice cracked with desperation, eagerness, terror.

_ That _ threatened to bowl her over sideways. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than— “A kiss. I just… could you?”

His eyes widened a little, and then he’d crossed the remaining space and he was bending down a little and his broad hand was cupping her cheek, warm and firm, and his mouth was on hers. Rey moaned a little and stood on her tiptoes, because even the human form still towered over her by a good eight inches. His other hand grasped her neck, the warm thumb pressed along her jaw, and it felt so  _ real _ and good and whole…

But it wasn’t real, and it wasn’t what she’d asked for. He pulled away, looking almost as if he’d been punched, and Rey said very quietly, “I wanted a kiss from  _ you, _ Solovei, not your fetch.”

The fetch looked hurt. “Have I disappointed you so?”

She had to smile at that. “Please. The real you. Come on.”

He hesitated, then vanished in a cloud of black mist, and Solovei was there instead, all tangled hair and claws and fur and red markings that seemed to be brighter than she recalled, wearing an expression of half-terror on his face. “You want to kiss... this,” he said, indicating himself with an air of disbelief. 

“Yes,” Rey insisted, and stepped closer, right into his space. He backed up until he was against the sofa, and fell down onto the seat, his legs spread and his arms open, as he looked up into her face with those black and golden eyes. “Will you let me?” she asked, trying to pitch her voice like he’d made her fetch speak: low and soft. “Please?”

“Oh, the devil take me,” Solovei whispered, voice pitched too high. “If you must, then. Yes.”

Rey planted her knee in the space between his huge thighs and bent down, bracing her arms on the back of the sofa. He smelled like… she’d never had a chance to actually notice it before, but he smelled like alpine forests, like something dark and sweet, like every good idea she’d ever had, like comfort and danger all rolled together. He was already breathing heavily, and a shiver went up her spine as she leaned down closer to his face. What had been the thing her fetch had whispered in Romanian? “ _ Inima mea, _ ” she tried, and his mouth dropped open, slack with shock, and  _ then  _ she was kissing him.

Rey had never been great at kissing. Part of it was getting a good feel for when your partner was doing certain things, and if they didn’t loosen up you could just end up feeling like you were slobbering all over someone’s mouth. But this was… this was  _ great _ : Solovei was open and pliant under her, gasping as she pressed her tongue over his bottom lip, nibbled gently, kissed, sucked, kissed again, and warmth was puddling between her legs, slipping down into her pelvis like honey on a hot summer day.

Suddenly, he was shaking so badly she thought he was going to cry— totally unexpected, like a snowstorm in June. Rey pulled back quickly to assess what was wrong, because she didn’t understand why he was— “Don’t,  _ don’t _ ,” begged Solovei as something very large and hard bumped against her thigh. She looked down between their bodies to see what it was: had something fallen down between their legs without her noticing?

Answer:  _ no. _

Answer in more detail: the object bumping her leg was a massive cock, jutting out from where his thighs were thickly furred with black hair, and he was squirming under her, clearly ashamed of his own arousal, and that…  _ that _ was absolutely not a human dick in any respect. 

“Holy shit,” she said, fascinated. “And here I was thinking you didn’t have any genitals.”

“Do  _ not _ mock me,” he begged, flinging a clawed hand up to cover his face. “I can’t bear that. Oh, God…”

Rey shook her head wildly, trying to reassure him. “I’m not! I’m really not. And I won’t touch it. How… where were you  _ hiding _ this?” 

“There is,” Solovei said in a very ragged tone from behind his hand, “a… slit. Fold. It… stays inside, unless… unless…” He ventured a peek at her from between his fingers.

Rey nodded. “Oh, got it. Are those… segments, where it’s, um, kind of... ribbed?” She moved her hand to point, and he went stiff as a board beneath her. “Don’t worry, I said I won’t touch it. I promised.”

“Yes. I—I—” Solovei looked like he was coming apart under her, half-panicked, and she wasn’t even touching him anymore. He dragged his hand down his face. “I don’t… I can, I can’t,  _ please _ , let me use the glamour, a different shape could, could, could please you more, not this—”

“I don’t want a glamour, I want  _ you _ ,” said Rey firmly, and he let out a ragged, desperate sob, gripped her hips, and pulled her down so that she was sitting on his stomach, his cock just barely lying along the back of her ass, hot even through her thin jersey pants… and then he was coming, or something like it, hoarse grunts spilling out of his mouth as he ground his hips up against the curve of her ass.

She was so wet, and she could barely do anything about it.  _ I could take that cock, _ she thought, pinning her bottom lip between her teeth as she held on firmly to his furry shoulders.  _ It can’t be worse than a Bad Dragon dildo, can it?  _ Dark red, ridged and bulging in odd places, thicker than a soda can, and a good length. Probably a solid twelve inches, of which she  _ might  _ be able to take, what? Eight? Nine? It was totally doable with enough lube. 

Solovei was panting under her, a deep flush the exact color of his body markings blooming on his pale cheeks. “Please,” he gasped, eyes squeezed shut. He sounded fucking  _ wrecked,  _ and she hadn’t even done anything to him. “Please forgive me.”

“For what?” 

“Losing control. You do not deserve to be used in this manner. I—” He gathered his thoughts for a moment, then opened his eyes. “I do not deserve to treat you like this.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “ _ Seriously _ ? You said you had super smelling powers or something, right? Take a fucking whiff of what’s going on between my legs right now.”

Solovei took in a breath, then stared back up at her in disbelief as the realization dawned on him that she was extremely, extremely aroused. “You…”

Rey blushed despite herself. “Yes. Yeah. I liked it. A lot. Probably more than I should have, but— hey. Can’t choose what I like, I guess.”

He opened and shut his mouth a couple of times. “But you, you wanted a marriage of convenience. You— a false— without—”

“I know what I wanted. I guess I… maybe want something different now. And I guess you do, too. So. We’re on the same page.”

“You defy all reason,” said Solovei, shaking his head. 

“Says the seven-foot-something guy with claws and glowy gold eyes.” Rey twisted around and looked down behind her. The penis had already disappeared back into the mysterious, unseen slit, but there was a noticeable lack of something else. “Hey, there’s no— I mean, you didn’t… did you come? Finish?”

“Ah. That.” Solovei pushed himself up, and Rey got off the sofa, standing back a little as he regained his dignity. “There is nothing spilled from me when I reach, ah, my release, or what release... I get.”

“What, ever? Or just when you’re touching yourself?”

“Since I have never touched a woman with this form, I cannot answer that,” he said in a very dry tone. “And I don’t expect this counted, either: rutting lightly—”

Rey couldn’t really breathe. “You’ve never— hold on. You’re telling me it’s been  _ two thousand years _ since you’ve had sex?”

Solovei looked a little cagey. “Are we factoring into this statement the use of glamours, or—”

She grinned. “Just in general, I guess. Although the idea of you watching your glamour bang a lady—or a guy, I mean, whatever—while the real you is watching is… a little voyeuristic. Kind of sexy. And you said you feel the stuff your glamours do, but it’s really muted, right? Like you can’t feel everything. So you… you’ve never felt what sex is really like in your actual body.”

“I consider that part of my curse,” he said. “In life… in my life, before I was this, I… had tastes that were unbridled, unrestrained. I had taken hundreds to bed, in war and peace, and killed without number from the mountains to the Black Sea. Now I have forgotten almost entirely the touch of another. I cannot recall how it felt to… to part flesh with my own, to lie with anyone, and there is no pleasure in the honor of battle. I know that to bed a woman was good, but I… I cannot slake my lust when the occasion arises, for no one will touch me, save through glamours and illusions, and I get no true pleasure from such, nor from… touching myself. The feeling, even that of climax, is like a shade of what it used to be. Even now, I want— I want you, and I know I cannot have you.”

There was a brief silence. Rey looked at him for a moment, her brain working about a mile a minute, got off him, reached down, and yanked her pants off while he stared in shock. “You can, you totally can— please, I really want you to,” she stammered, standing there in her underwear.

Solovei looked horrified. “You do not know what you ask of me.  _ Look _ at me, for God’s sake. I could—I could kill you, Miss Keyner.”

“I don’t care,” said Rey, trying to keep herself from speaking so fast she became unintelligible. “Listen to me, okay? I don’t care if you can’t even fit all the way in, or if you cry, or if you don’t come, or if you come too fast, or if, if I can’t come, or wind up with a gnarly scar or a busted pelvis. I am telling you that I want you. I’ll touch you. I’ll do it right now if you let me. Please.”

But he was just shaking his head, staring at her in regret: why was he doing that? “If I touch you at all, it should… it should be with a human glamour, not this abominable—”

She groaned. “Oh, my god. You are  _ not listening.  _ What did I just say? I said I want  _ you, _ all of you, the way you are. You shouldn’t have to hide behind an illusion to—”

His mouth pressed into a thin line, and the next thing she knew he was gone, and the human fetch was standing there, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. “I am  _ not _ hiding,” he said. “I am protecting you.”

“From what? From my own choices?” Rey shoved the fetch, who toppled back onto the sofa and gazed up at her with heavily-lidded eyes, and, okay,  _ that _ was kind of hot, even if he wasn’t exactly what she wanted at the moment. “That’s so gross. That’s misogynistic. That’s—”

“He’s watching,” whispered the fetch, a teasing lilt to his voice, and… okay, admittedly that  _ was _ really hot, the idea of Solovei watching her and the illusion. Rey caught her breath for a moment, and the illusion’s voice returned to normal, his features gone very serious. “Miss Keyner. I want you. Believe me, I do, but the chance that I could harm you... Please. I don’t know how to please you. Show me. Will you show me?”

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered, and reached down, unbuttoning the shirt. She could pretend it was real, couldn’t she? Just for a minute. It was better than nothing. “Fine. Because I  _ want _ to, not because your fetch is asking me to.”

“Of course,” said Fetch Solovei, smiling his crooked-toothed smile as she yanked his shirt off and flung it into the air, where it vanished into black dust. His bare chest was thick with muscle, solid, broad, and spattered with moles and freckles. Rey bent down and licked his flat, pale right nipple, then sucked at it a little. He seemed to like it, biting into his plush bottom lip and moaning a little, so she moved to the other one and did the same thing. Her pants were already off, so there remained only taking off her shirt and her bralette, leaving her in her underwear only. He stared at her breasts in openmouthed admiration, clutching one tight in a big palm. “Soft,” he muttered, nuzzling at the skin. “I think.”

Rey was already dragging off his pants. “Make these disappear, too,” she ordered, and they vanished, leaving only a thatch of dark, coarse hair and a perfectly normal human boner springing out of it, pink at the tip, smooth and pale. Rey got her hand around it and gave him a few preemptive pumps, hoping Solovei could feel something. “You want me to put this inside me?” she asked, and the fetch whispered assent, wriggling under her. “I don’t know. Looks a little small.”

“Small?” he whispered, throaty and unsure. “I chose… an average size I read that most partners would find perfectly adequate.”

“Yeah? On the Internet?”

“Yes,” he admitted, blushing.

Rey fought to hide a smile. “Hmm. Make it thicker. If you can make your illusions turn into Marilyn Monroe and vanish pants off, I know you can do that.”

Without a warning, the dick in her hand swelled in circumference, going from something she could wrap her hand around fully to something she couldn’t close her fingers around. “Like this?” asked the fetch, still splayed out under her. 

God, the  _ possibilities _ here. “Yes,” she said, and wriggled down his body to position herself between his legs so she could lean down and close her mouth around the tip.

Solovei moaned, a deep, rumbly sound, and she worked her way further down, as far as she could comfortably before pulling back up and licking at the head. “Miss Keyner,” he whispered. “This is—not what I— that—very indecent.”

“Says the guy projecting another form for me to blow,” she muttered, popping off the head. “Hope you’re enjoying the view.”

“Very much,” said the fetch of Solovei, still lazily gazing down at her. She grinned up at him and went back to sucking his dick, her hands bracing themselves on his hips. “Shall I…” and his fingers worked their way into her hair, a gentle, guiding hand. “I won’t choke you,  _ inima mea. _ Ah, your mouth is like velvet. So good, you are so good to me…” Another bigger hand, warm and hard, splayed itself out carefully against her lower back, and she realized with a thrill that Solovei was back there, watching her. Rey wiggled her ass a little, moaning around the dick in her mouth, and a soft catch of breath in a throat was her reward. 

The fetch came into her mouth, moaning. It wasn’t real, of course, so there was no actual cum, just the pretense, and then the human Solovei was gone in a swirl of mist, and Rey was just kneeling in front of an empty couch with a drool-wet mouth and a slightly sore jaw. The real Solovei lifted her up and set her on the sofa. He was rock hard, his dark red erection out again and pointing directly at her, and his pupils had dilated to the size of quarters in his golden eyes. “You are a wonder, Miss Keyner,” he murmured, half-curling in on himself with the habit of hiding his body. “I ought to tell you... I can cast more than one glamour at one time.”

“Oh, Jesus,” muttered Rey, wiping her lips. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get out of this by dangling magical threesomes in front of my face. It won’t work.”

“No?” He ducked his head further down, between her knees, looking up at her with a half-nervous expression. “Then what can I offer? Repayment, perhaps? The same thing you have done for me, done to you?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Th— the— oh. That.” Truly, she’d only been eaten out before by two guys, and both of those experiences had not been great (the first one had insisted that trying to play with her butt at the same time would result in an earth-shattering orgasm, and the second guy had made a big deal about how she’d smelled until she’d gotten so frustrated and embarrassed she’d given up and just let him fuck her) but somehow she thought this might be a little different. His mouth was big and soft and plush, and he was gazing up at her with those golden eyes like he thought she might not want him, and… “Yes. If you— do you— you know how to—”

“I can learn,” he said eagerly, and his eyes went straight to her crotch, where a wet spot was already soaking through the thin cotton, the outline of her labia visible. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I can…” Gently, Solovei lifted a taloned hand, and carefully slipped the underwear off, past her knees, down to her ankles, and off to the carpet. Rey, laying there naked and extremely aware of just how defenseless she was against him, went very still as a velvety, dark knuckle the size of two of hers together brushed up carefully, nudging her delicate tissues aside, up to her clit, where she let out an involuntary little yelp as the texture of his skin slid over the bundle of nerves there. “That,” he said softly, repeating the movement as he watched her face avidly. “Ah, that. I recall now.”

“Oh, my god,” Rey gritted out through her teeth. She wanted to grab his hand, to rub herself off against his palm, to— to— “Please, please, please get your mouth on me, Solovei—”

He didn’t have to be asked twice. The jet-black claws curled lightly over her thighs and his huge back shouldered her knees as far open as they could go, and his tangled head bent down low, a moan escaping his throat as he closed his mouth over her pussy and started working at her with his tongue and lips.  Rey let out a noise like she’d been stabbed and jerked her pelvis up, trying to grind against his face. Solovei lifted his mouth, startled at her response. “Am I doing it correctly—?”

_ Goddammit! Get your mouth back on me!  _ “Fuck fuck fuck  _ yes _ , sorry, yes, yes, keep—”

He bent down again, licking, humming to himself, rubbing the pads of his huge fingers along her upper thighs, and Rey was left to grip the sofa with one hand and (for lack of a better place, definitely for no other reason, not at all) the other buried in his tangled, knotted hair as she pulled tightly on the black strands. He groaned and shuddered violently when she touched him, and a few more pushes was all she needed: Rey came  _ hard, _ so hard her thighs shook and strained and her mouth fell open, soundless for a second before she let out a shriek, and the minute she was done he was disentangling himself, backing away in shock, chest heaving as he stared at her.

Even kneeling on the floor, his head was at a level with hers. “What,” she panted, dragging her hands down her face, “what’s wr-wrong?”

A shudder went through him again. “Too much,” he said thinly, bowing in on himself a little. His cock had not flagged a single inch, and still jutted out from between his thighs, huge and red, pointing directly at her as if it was trying to be helpful and say  _ look, that’s where we need to go _ . “Ah, God. The  _ smell _ of you…” Solovei dragged a hand down his face, gathering up the slick moisture that she’d left on his cheeks and lips, and shut his eyes, shivering as his tongue flicked out and gathered it up, his cheeks hollowing obscenely around his fingertips, behind his palm. “I would take you here on the floor,” he growled, eyes still shut, “had I any less control.”

“You can— could— do it. I want that. Please.” Rey slid off the sofa, feeling boneless, and knelt, holding out her hand to him. 

“You are a sweet girl,” Solovei said, opening his eyes, “but… no. Not— I am— I would... you must understand that it is no small matter to resume this sort of— thing, when one hasn’t done it in two thousand years.”

Rey tried to hide her disappointment.  _ He needs time. That’s okay. It’s fine. Really.  _ “You can take all the time you need. As long as it’s not fifty years, though, because I— I really do want you. Like this.” She gestured at this body. 

Relief swept his face as he sagged a little. “Ah, merciful lady, blessed are you.”

She giggled. “Shut up. Did I hurt you when I pulled your hair? I’m sorry.”

“It did not… hurt, truly,” Solovei said, looking away for a moment. “It— you know how it feels when your hair has been tied in one place a long time, and the ache it brings your scalp?”

“Yes,” said Rey, nodding. 

“Like that… but spreading from scalp to body in a great wave, and mixed with a— a pleasant feeling so strong, and violently so, that I thought— I thought I might lose my composure and take you right then and there.” 

_ Oh, my god, does he have any idea what the thought of that is doing to me?  _ Rey tried to swallow. “Oh,” she said, reedy and thin. “Okay.” She had to think about something else, anything else, talk about something so she didn’t tackle him and jump his bones.  _ Please, anything to get my brain off the subject of sex right now.  _ “And what… you had my double call you something, and you said it again a few times. What was that?  _ Inima mea _ ?”

He looked away with a shy little duck of his head. “It means  _ my heart _ ,” he said.

The door to the study opened, and Rey jumped about a foot, grabbing her boobs in both her hands before Solovei magicked up a blanket and threw it across her shoulders in the blink of an eye before he snatched an afghan up. “Conte,” said Huc, stepping into the room, his eyes fixed on his phone, “I was wondering if you would like to order—” His green eyes flashed up, and his eyebrows went up in the slightest tic of surprise. “Ah,” he said.

“Continue,” said Solovei, still sitting on the floor by a blanket-burrito-wrapped Rey, the old knitted afghan doing a terrible job of hiding his own erection. 

“Yes. Ah. Er.” Huc suddenly found the phone’s screen fascinating. “Order a… order takeaway. Curry. Fast food. A— anything. I can drive in and get it at once. In fact, I think I ought to drive into town right now, if that is all right.”

“Please do,” said Solovei, completely unflappable. “I will have a curry. Miss Keyner, would you like something?”

“Um,” said Rey, cheeks on fire at being caught. “Um. Yes. A… a Coke. And, and, pizza, cheese and mushroom and green peppers?”

“I shall fetch it at once,” said Huc, and turned on his heel, practically fleeing from the room. 

As soon as the door shut, Rey’s blanket vanished, and she buried her head in her hands. “Oh, my god. We scarred him for life.”

“Huc? He’s seen far worse than this.” Solovei shot her a grin. “Once, he went to a party in Berlin with me. Nineteen twenty-one. Went in dressed in a suit, came out dressed like a woman and covered in lipstick. The ladies adored him, but not as much as the gentlemen did. Do you want something to drink? I’ll make you something while we wait for him to return.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Rey, scrambling up and hurrying to put her clothes back on. “A gin and tonic. Please. Double strong, or I won’t be able to look Huc in the eyes when he comes home.”


	8. In Which There Is A Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: MONSTER MAGNUM DONG, PIV sex in the woods in the rain, and slight aftermath injuries. At one point a female character experiences pain during sex with a male character and asks to stop, and the male character immediately does as she asks.
> 
> god i have to update the tags on this sdjhgfhajsaj anyway

Rey resolved to herself after the incident in the study that she wasn’t going to push Solovei on having sex, since he clearly was not comfortable with being  _ quite _ that intimate so soon. He did, however, start to touch her more often without using an illusion as a barrier, and it seemed to help with his comfort levels. It also helped that he had a weakness for her lemon bars, so she started using them as little rewards every time he touched the small of her back, or brushed against her in the kitchen, or tucked her hair behind her ear. There was something very homey and appealing about a giant creature with fur and talons scarfing down lemon bars against the kitchen table after he’d gently guided her away from a hot stove.

Huc began to give them both a bit of a wide berth, but had the good taste to say absolutely nothing about what he’d seen the night he’d walked in on them. Every morning, however, Rey was interested to find a different flower on her breakfast tray: all from the gardens, white roses, red ones, gardenias, lavender sprigs, lilacs. “It’s his way of saying he approves,” Solovei explained, slightly discomfited, when she asked, and Rey bit back a little smile.

* * *

“You know,” Rey brought up one day in late June as they ate banana bread, fresh and hot with butter in the kitchen, “my three months will be up in another couple of weeks.”

“Indeed,” Solovei said, pausing mid-bite. “Will you be applying, then, for the long stay visa?”

“I’m... still thinking about it,” Rey said as aloofly as she possibly could, while his hopeful golden eyes gazed at her and she pretended her heart wasn’t pounding.

* * *

She texted Rose:  _ so hypothetically let’s say you got into an arranged marriage with a guy who has some interesting secrets but you’re ok with it but he has a weird hangup… worth it? _

Rose texted back:  _ interesting secrets as in Dracula or interesting secrets as in secret mafia or like…. _

Rey:  _ more like what if we want to bang actually and uhh he feels guilty about it??? _

Rose:  _ I KNEW HE HAD TO BE HOT!!!! Talk it outttt with a lot of touching and flirting and shit. And bitch send me the DEETS _

* * *

Rey tried to follow Rose's advice, really she did, but the closest she got to touching him, despite his willingness to touch her, was finally making him sit down so she could comb the tangles out of his long hair. “I bet you won’t look half as terrifying with a scrunchie holding this nonsense back,” she said, wielding a brush like it was a sword.

“I would prefer it be left alone,” he said, backing away. “Miss Keyner—”

She crossed her arms and pointed at the kitchen stool. “Ah-ah. Sit. I’ll give your back fur a good long pet… and I’ll throw a head massage into the bargain.”

Solovei let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh and plodded to the stool, sitting and letting her start to work.

Rey combed out the ends, massaged his scalp, gently picked out tangles: her fingers combed through the big knots and the comb’s teeth found the little ones, and when it was all smoothed down, she took the brush and ran it gently from scalp to end in long, sweeping strokes that made him make weak little noises, grip the stool with his talons, and squirm, his shoulders hunched. Rey brushed his hair back and tied it out of the way with one of her own hair-ties, then followed through on the back fur promise: feathers got preened and the fur was brushed down firmly, leaving thick shedding clouds of ink-colored fluff on the kitchen floor as Solovei moaned aloud at the feeling of simply being touched, then went silent, trying to keep himself quiet with a black knuckle in his mouth. 

They both pretended he didn’t have a raging boner when she was done. He slipped off to the study, shutting the door with a shaky, embarrassed thank-you, leaving Rey very horny and very alone in the kitchen.

* * *

Early July brought more thunderstorms, which drove Rey inside out of the garden at least once every day. Huc would usually meet her in the kitchen, sigh paternally, and bring her towels while making little remarks about how she should really invest in a rain slicker, since mortals, he had heard, were prone to things like pneumonia and the common cold. 

One day, though, Huc was off, and Rey was at the way, way back of the garden, almost near the forest, where the lilacs grew, when the clouds rolled in and the thunder started to clap overhead. She barely had time to move before big fat raindrops like hail started to pour down over her, splattering her flannel shirt and old jeans.

“Oh, god damn it,” she said, scurrying into the trees for shelter. The run to the house from this distance would just get her even more soaked. The trees were big firs, though, and didn’t offer much in the way of a roof, so she went further in, hoping to find a dry spot as her boots crunched over pine needles and wet bracken.

A few minutes later, Rey realized she couldn’t see the house anymore. 

A few seconds after that, she realized she’d lost her sense of direction, and the forest was getting dark, the rainclouds blocking out the sun above the thick canopy of the trees.

“Don’t panic,” she said aloud. There were definitely no wild animals out here, right? She’d never seen any. She just had to stay put and be patient, wait for the rain to clear, and make her way out. “You’ll be fine. Totally fine."

* * *

The rain didn’t stop. The light was fading even more, and soon Rey was alone, huddled against the trunk of an ancient fir, shivering and soaked. Where the hell was the house? Was Huc going to come looking for her in the morning? Or Solovei? Her teeth were chattering. It was summer, but the mountains were cold at night.  _ I’m going to get hypothermia. I’m so cold. I’m lost.  _

A sound suddenly met her ears: the sound of crunching, running feet: something on all fours and  _ big _ was rocketing her way through the underbrush.  Rey panicked. She bolted to her feet and started to run, not caring which way she was going, as long as it was away from whatever the fuck  _ that _ was.  _ Wolf,  _ she thought, panting as she raced through the trees.  _ Big wolf, wolf, bear, bobcat, gonna eat me— _

She stumbled into a clearing, terror choking her, and tripped on a tree root, slamming down onto her face and crying out in pain. The thing was on her heels, so close; she was going to die in the fucking woods and never see anyone she loved again: Solovei, Rose, Poe, Finn— 

Rey rolled over and protected her face with her forearms. “Please!” she screamed, spitting pine needles and dirt out of her mouth. “Stop, stop—”

“Miss Keyner?” She knew that voice: she sat up, gasping and shaking, and saw Solovei, on all fours ten feet away, huge and terrifying with wet fur plastered to his body, eyes gleaming red in the dim light… and she’d never been happier to see him in her life.

“Oh, thank god,” she gasped, and lurched up, staggering. He darted toward her with surprisingly fluid movements and drew himself up to two legs, catching her as she half-fell onto him, and he was so warm, so solid, so real. “Oh, my god, I thought you were a monster chasing me.” Rey wrapped her arms around him as far as she could reach and squeezed, hugging him tight. Tears welled up, and she started to cry. “I thought you were a  _ monster _ .”

“Miss Keyner,” he rumbled, soft and low, and she realized what she’d said:  _ I thought you were a monster _ , implying that he wasn’t... that he wasn’t. “I have been searching for you for hours.”

“I got lost,” she explained, pulling her head back from the sodden pelt on his chest. “I thought I’d just look for shelter in the trees, and wait the storm out, and then it was so dark, and, and I got lost…” She felt like a stupid lost child, an idiot, and started to cry again, burying her face in his fur.

Two big, thick, warm arms came up and cradled her tenderly, embracing her, and she nestled in further. “You are safe,” he whispered down into her hair. “I have you now. It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry,” she cried, sniffling. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Shh,” Solovei said gently, stroking her wet hair back from her face. “Of all the things to be sorry for. You’re cold, Miss Keyner. Shh.”

“You’re so warm,” she whispered, and tucked her arms in close between their bodies, where her hands heated up between her sodden, freezing yard work clothes and his warm, damp skin. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“Yes,” he agreed, haltingly. “We… we can…” His hand remained on her head, then slipped, seemingly of their own accord, down her shoulders, pressing lightly against her spine.

“W-we c-can—” she began, not knowing what she wanted to say or what she was going to say, and before she knew what was happening he was bending down, half kneeling to reach her, and kissing her.  _ We can do that, too, _ she thought, her rain-blind eyes blinking wildly as she tried her best to kiss him with numb lips.  _ Definitely that. More of that.  _ “I was so scared,” she gasped against his cheek as he pulled her closer. “So lost. Solovei…”

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he muttered into her ear. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing with his hands, but Rey didn’t care. “Not afraid. I’ve found you.” Big, velvety hands moved down her shirt, then up under it, spreading out on her waist, and she moaned at how hot his hands were, while he grunted, trying to restrain himself and taking care not to puncture her skin with the claws. “You are so  _ small _ ,” he mumbled, rain dripping off his hair and running cold down Rey’s neck.

This was the most he’d ever touched her, and she couldn’t help but want more. The terror of being lost and the thrill of being found again seemed to combine in her brain; a heady cocktail of endorphins.  _ We could do it right here, on the ground in the rain, and I wouldn’t care.  _ “I w-want,” she chattered, cold everywhere but between her thighs. “Please. S-Solovei.”

“I cannot promise… cannot…” His voice faded into a soft gasp as she took the back of his hand and firmly moved his palm up to cup over her bralette, which was soaked, but she was sure he could still feel the hard nipple poking through the fabric. “M-Miss  _ Keyner _ —” and that, that did it.

They crashed down together to the forest floor. Solovei crouched above her, panting heavily, and ripped open her flannel shirt and her bralette with a single swipe of his razorlike claws. He never even came close to breaking her skin, and Rey lifted her knees to pull his broad body down closer, grabbing for his furry ruff in the dark to hold onto. “Please,” she panted, half mindless with need. “My, my, oh, please, my pants—”

He shredded the thick denim too, leaving her in nothing but the scraps of red checked flannel that her shirt had been, her underwear, and her boots. One massive knee planted itself between her thighs as he bent to kiss her again, and the scents of pine and musk and something dark surrounded her. Rey breathed it in, shuddering. “I— I’ve been reading,” he groaned, breaking away from her for a moment. “I looked up… things. On— on the Internet. It’s. A good way to, to, learn, to learn about other th-things I forgot—”

“Yeah?” she asked, grinding down against this thigh, which felt about the size of her waist. “You— you’ve been doing research for sex and thinking about me?”

“I forgot so much,” Solovei groaned, going back down for another kiss, which she gave willingly, her arms wrapped around his wet, fluffy neck. He pulled back, gasping. “I remember now. I can— I should have had you in a bed, like a lady, but I... I think I could please you.”

“Oh, y-you _think?_ ” Rey reached down blindly and felt between his legs. _Clothes: off._ _Pussy: wet. Dick: out. I will be forcibly deported from Romania._ “Get on your back,” she panted, no longer cold as she tried to pat at his waist with her free hand. “I want to be on top.”

He didn't seem to have an issue with that. Solovei rolled to his back with her in his arms, and she hoisted herself up, straddling his huge hips and feeling out her territory in the chilly dusk: broad chest, soft wet fur, thick arms, velvety hands, clawed fingers, the thatch of fur leading to his dick… his actual dick. Which she was going to have to get closely acquainted with in the next couple of minutes. She scooted back, exploring just the base, which made him choke a little. “I want to touch it, can I—”

“Yes,” he begged, “ _ yes _ , please—” so Rey’s fingers found the hot, solid skin, and mapped out the contours of the thing she was about to try to stuff inside her. She could get both hands around it, but definitely not one, and he felt like he was almost the length of her forearm. The head felt smooth, rounded, but much wider than she was used to, and it seemed like he still had a foreskin, so she pulled it back gently, and rubbed her thumb at the underside of the slick head. Solovei let out a strangled cry and jerked under her, a broken flood of Romanian gushing out of his mouth.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, patting his belly. “Easy. Just. Just—” Rey stood and yanked off her underwear, and heard a very long, gentle sniff in the gloom:  _ he knows, _ she thought in glee, and moved back to her spot on his lap. “Okay. I’m going to… just…” She canted her hips forward, biting her lip as his warm, solid cock slid under the parted flesh between her legs. 

Solovei let out a snarl and jerked his hips up again, trembling. “Hot,” he gasped, “h-hot there, inside, smooth,  _ warm _ —”

“I know, I know, I’ll— you’ll—” She couldn’t even think straight, or speak: she was sopping fucking wet and she wanted him more than anything. “I’m. I’m going to get you in me. Promise. Don’t, don’t thrust up. I have to take my time with you. No lube.”

“I won’t,” he sobbed, throwing his head back. “Won’t, won’t, I—”

That was all she needed. Rey got herself positioned, the head of his dick pressing against her where she needed him, and slowly sank him in, her own thighs shaking as she knelt above him. “Oh,  _ shit, _ ” she gritted out, because he was  _ wide _ and he wasn’t even in more than an inch and she was already sweating. “Shit, shit.”

“R-Rey,” choked Solovei, trembling beneath her like an earthquake. “Is it—”

“It’s fine,” she spluttered, trying to relax. “Yeah, it’s…” Another inch.  _ Why didn’t I bring lube? Pocket lube! Great idea NOW!  _ “Good,” she choked, and he slipped in another inch. “Oh, my  _ god _ .”  _ Just a few more. You’re not a quitter. Get it in there. _ Her hand frantically worked at her clit, and that loosened her up to take another three inches, and she let out a shuddering little gasp: he felt like he was stretching her to her limit, but this was fine, she did it. “There,” she said, triumphant and panting slightly. "Done. You okay?"

“Rey,” said Solovei, somewhere beneath her, thin and strained.

“Yeah?” she asked, experimentally flexing her thighs.

One hand clutched her knee. “It’s not… it’s not all the way in.”

Her heart sank. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she groaned. She bounced a little, swiveling her hips, trying to work him down further, and whatever thin thread of control Solovei'd been clinging to snapped— huge hands gripped Rey's waist and she was very, very firmly  _ put down,  _ shrieking and squirming the whole way until she was bottomed out completely, ass resting on his thighs and taking her breaths in sharp little gasps, because she didn’t think she could get a full breath without getting a cramp. 

“Rey,” he sobbed, hands shaking, claws poking her very gently where his fingers were digging into her body. “Oh, f- _ fuck _ , you’re s-small—”

She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t—maybe if he started fucking her it would feel better than being stuffed so full of monster cock that she felt like she was going to suffocate. “Move,  _ move _ , for fuck’s sake—”

He lifted her and set her back down, lifted her and lowered her. Like she was nothing; like she was a toy or a cloud, and every thrust was  _ good _ , but borderline agony, right on the edge of being way, way too much, to the point where the pain was starting to override anything good about it. Noises were exploding out of his throat, guttural and vicious and animalistic: “Rey, _augh,_ _ Rey _ —”

“Too much,” she shrieked, writhing in his grasp as a pinching cramp like lightning rocketed through her pelvic floor. Tears sprang to her eyes. She couldn't do this, she _couldn't._ “ _ Ow,  _ t-too  _ much,  _ stop, stop,  _ stop _ —”

He made a wordless sound of desperation, but lifted her off him in one movement by her torso, and she pulled her knees up, gasping as he cradled her close, his arms wrapped around her frame as she huddled on his chest. “I’ve hurt you,” he panted, shaking. “Is it bad? Are you— did I do damage?”

“No,” she whimpered, pressing her face into his fur. “No, just— just, it was, it was a lot, and, and, I couldn’t, couldn’t take it all.” She sucked in a breath. “I wanted to take all of you. For you. I wanted…”

“You did,” Solovei reassured her, claws stroking through her hair. “You did, you did well,  _ inima mea,  _ Shh.” His other hand pressed lower, kneading gently into her abdomen, and Rey groaned, feeling some of the pain lessen as he massaged her skin. 

“I could try again,” she offered, wiping her nose. Rain was still falling, thick and fast, but the clouds seemed to be clearing— a dark grayish light filled the trees, enough to see him by. “Could try… if I lay on my stomach and keep my thighs together, maybe you can… get in like that. From the back. Then you won’t need to go all the way in. You’ll be, um, rubbing between my legs to make up for it.”

“You truly are without fear,” Solovei said, nuzzling her hair. “On your belly, then, when you are ready.”

“Give me another kiss first,” she whispered, and he did, his tongue even sliding in alongside hers and exploring her lips. One bent knuckle brushed her breast, and she squirmed a little as his mouth left hers and bent to take the nipple in, licking and sucking. “Ooh, warm. You like my tits? I know you do, ‘cause you thought about them so much you made a carbon copy for my magic double to flash at you.”

“If you don’t stop talking,” he growled, releasing her breast with a pop and aiming one bright eye upward at her, “I will bring up my human glamour and have him stuff his cock into your pretty mouth.”

Rey bit her lip and grinned at him. “You wouldn’t. You don’t like sharing. Not really.”

“No,” he admitted, bluff called, and went back to work on her other nipple, licking and sucking and reaching down between her thighs (and the claws gave her a bit of pause at first, but when he actually touched her he was so careful that she might as well have not worried) to rub softly between her legs. “I do not. Watching you and my glamour... an agony of jealousy. Ah, you are opening here, so soft and wet for me. Do you like that thought, then?"

"M-making you jealous?" she said, screwing her eyes shut. "Maybe. Yeah. Okay. _Oh,_ your fingers are big."

"A shame about the claws," Solovei muttered darkly, nibbling at her skin. "I would gladly make you... come on my fingers, if I could."

“Oh _god,_ okay,” Rey panted, sufficiently aroused again and really, really wanting a second attempt at taking that monster dick. “Okay. I’m ready, I'm, shit, just...”

He grunted assent and helped position her as she lay down in the wet bracken, crouching over her. Under him, it was drier and warmer from his body heat, shielded from the rain, and she sighed as she squeezed her thighs together and arched her lower back down a little. Solovei fumbled a bit at first, then found the right spot, and pushed in slowly, carefully, letting her breathe as he groaned his way in, which must have taken the most concrete self-control in the world, because it was a tight fit, but by no means an impossible one.

_ So much better, oh my god.  _ Every nerve, already wrecked, was lighting up in fireworks as he shoved himself in the last few inches, groaning softly in her ear, his wet black hair dropping down around her face like a curtain. “Oh,” she wheezed, scrabbling for something to hold on to and only finding a tree root and leaves as he bottomed out, flush against her ass, coarse furry hair tickling her backside— but nothing hurt at all. Everything just felt stretched and full; thick and  _ safe _ . “Oh, fuck,  _ fuck, _ that’s—”

“Oh, m-my own heart,” he echoed, straining from somewhere above her. “You took me. All of me.”

“Did I do—good?” begged Rey, lifting her head with her fingers buried in soil.  _ Please, just tell me I’m good. Tell me I did it. Be proud of me.  _ All those years of feeling unwanted, uncared for, alone, lost, and here she was, whining like a baby for approval from—

Solovei rocked out, then thrust back in. “ _ So _ good,” he gasped, sounding like he might cry. “You have done perfectly. So... _good_ to me, my darling little firebrand, my heart’s star— you burn like salt and iron, this, this,  _ ah,  _ you are  _ killing _ me slowly, my good girl, my  _ brave _ girl—”

She started to cry. She couldn’t help it: it was beautiful, this absolutely feral thing that was happening in the middle of the forest, in the heart of a storm, and she was  _ loved:  _ someone loved her, she was someone’s good, brave girl. Solovei heard her and paused, but she shook her head. “Don’t stop,” she sobbed, rocking up to meet him as best she could flat on her belly with her ass up and her face down. “Don’t stop, don’t stop—”

He caught his breath and kept going, thrusting at a slightly quicker pace. “I am—I, I, Rey, Rey, don’t weep, I am here, I will always be here, my heart, always here.”

Never in her life had Rey ever come from anything other than masturbating or direct clitoral stimulation. She’d thought it was impossible to come from anything else, like the G-spot of myth and mystery, and yet at the words  _ I will always be here  _ something in her body screamed in gleeful reply and she was coming as hard as she’d ever come in her life, shrieking crazily into the mud and pine needles as Solovei let out a hoarse shout in answer. He drove himself deep, thrusts becoming uneven and stilted, and Rey suddenly realized with a dazed kind of panic that she wasn’t going to be able to see him come, and that she really, really wanted to see him come. “Want… to see you,” she choked out, and he let out a cry and gripped her by the arms, hauling her up to a kneeling position in the dirt, his cock still pumping into her. 

“Greedy,” he gasped, twisting his hips. “My Rey is— a g-greedy thing, who wishes to see what has n-not been seen in two thousand years—”

“Please,” she whined, trying to twist to see his face. Her pussy was aching by this point, but she didn’t care: she wanted to see him. “Please, please, I’ll do anything—”

He clutched her torso close and rolled her to face him with a snarl, almost wrenching her thigh out of joint in the process, but she definitely did not give a fuck about that, not when she was bouncing up and down on his giant cock as he knelt and clutching his face and his whole body was as tight as a cord under her, ready to snap. “Is this what you want?” he ground through his teeth, lips trembling. “T-to see me _undone_?”

“Yes,” she sobbed, hands clutching his ruff. “Yes, yes,  _ yes _ —”

When Solovei came, he roared so loudly she thought the moon might split in half. Rey felt a gush of heat between her legs, and he obviously felt it too, because he let out a frightened little cry at the tail end of the shout and pulled her off him clumsily, toppling them both to the forest floor as his cock pumped gob after gob of fluid across her bare, chilled, dirty stomach. It didn’t stop, either, just kept dribbling out in spurts as he whimpered and shook with the aftershocks, and Rey sat up on her elbows, mystified, because the— stuff, semen, whatever it was, was  _ glowing:  _ bioluminescent blue, glittering like starlight across the plane of her belly and where it was smeared between her legs and on the shaft of his cock. Rey ran a finger through it and rubbed her thumb and index finger together, testing it. It seemed to have the viscosity of normal ejaculate, but smelled… strangely like citrus. Or vanilla? Something nice. She licked her finger, but grimaced: it tasted like metallic egg whites, pretty much like any other cum she’d ever tasted.

“That— that— “Solovei was swaying where he crouched on all fours, trembling and drunk on his own orgasm. “Th-that has never— I don’t—”

“Let’s n-not question it,” said Rey, shivering in the cool evening air. “Come here. I’m cold.”

He crawled up to her and lay down next to her, pulling her close to his thick, warm body with a single arm as if he was afraid she might scamper off. "Stay," he whispered, a broken little plea in her ear.

A shudder ran through her. "Stay..." she echoed, half-lost and half knowing exactly what he meant.

"With me. Here." Gold, shining eyes met hers in the dark. "I beg you. You... you wear the ring always. I know you do. I must then assume you intend to still marry me, but whether it be a marriage of convenience or, or, or this? I don't care."

_ He wants me. Any way. Either way. He wants me. _ Rey shut her eyes, trying to stamp down the giddy delight that was threatening to consume her from the throat in. "Something stings," she said instead, desperate to buy a moment while she thought. "My waist. Can you see anything?"

Solovei lifted his heavy head and peered down at her in the gloom. “I think I may have… broken skin,” he muttered. “When I moved you. Towards the end. I am sorry.” He glanced at her quickly, like he was trying to figure out if it was a big deal or not.

“That’s fine,” Rey whispered, pillowing her head on her arm. “I don’t mind. Can’t feel a thing.”  _ He could have torn my legs clean off and I wouldn’t have cared.  _ “Was it… did you like it?” 

He sighed deeply and drowsily nosed his way into her hair. “Miss Keyner. Yes. That was... worth waiting two thousand years for.”

She shut her eyes, tears leaking out from under her lids. “I bet you tell all the girls that,” she whispered, but the joke fell flat to her own ears.

“None. Only you.” He nosed into her wet hair and kissed her neck, sighing deeply. “Huc will be frantic.”

“Huc can go get himself fucked,” mumbled Rey, warm in his arms. Her sides were stinging by now, but it was nothing some Neosporin wouldn’t fix.  _ That’s a problem for tomorrow me. _ “Solovei.”

He tried so, so hard not to sound overeager, but failed. “Hmm?”

She took a deep breath, moving herself closer as she steeled herself. “I want… to stay. I _will_ stay. Let’s go get married in the morning for all I care. But first… you have to tell me why you wanted a fake marriage. Please.”

He sighed deeply, and was silent for a minute. When Rey was sure he’d fallen asleep, though, or changed his mind, he started talking. “I was lonely, Miss Keyner. I am lonely. I have been lonely for centuries, and I thought… perhaps the opportunity to gain a companion had presented itself. A female companion, who would not expect physical intimacy from me, but who I might also show some affection in a friendly way. I have too much money: why should I hoard it, and not give it to someone who would use it? Interest rates… I had to withdraw it all from the banks about a hundred years ago, or it would have attracted suspicion in this day and age of electronic tracking. You could hide things so much better in ledgers… I never dared to dream I might obtain such a companion, who shows no disgust at my true form, and even desired it. You are truly beyond all my wildest dreams. I only wanted a… a friend, a true friend, and instead I received love.”

Rey swallowed the sudden lump that had appeared in her throat. “Oh. So… this isn’t going to take a Twilight twist, right? You can’t get me pregnant, can you?”

“I… I have no idea,” he said, sounding a little shocked. “I did not think I could… emit the substance necessary. And yet…”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” said Rey, closing her eyes. “Solovei, if you get me pregnant with a freaky baby who might kill me on the way out—”

“That is not going to happen,” he said firmly. “I do not think our bodies are as similar as that: a lion cannot mate with a— a— another animal not of its kind.”

Rey buried her hands in her eyes. “I just… whew. Okay. So if I stay married to you here… I guess I’ll be here until I die.”

“I… yes,” said Solovei, in a voice that suggested he had already thought about this, and was surprised she hadn’t. “I expect so. Unless perhaps it is like the old tales, and you have lifted some curse by your actions." He chuckled, dry and soft. "Perhaps the kiss has allowed me to die at last. Who knows? You may find naught but dust when the sun rises.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” said Rey, whirling over on her side to glare at him. “Don’t. I couldn’t— I would be so— I can’t lose you.”

“And how do you think I feel,” he murmured, low and gentle in her ear, “about losing you? Seeing you grow old and die. Bidding you farewell, and going on and on with no end in sight.”

“Don’t talk about that,” she whispered, moving closer. “Please, don’t. Let’s just sleep out here.”

“Then we will sleep,” Solovei said gently, and draped his arm around her shoulder as she tucked her head into the space under his chin, breathing hot and damp against his body.

* * *

Rey became aware of warm sunlight on her chest and opened her eyes. She was lying on her side, totally naked except for her gardening boots, and it was a bright, warm summer morning. The sunlight was filtering through the pine needles and hazy pollen was drifting through the beams. She sat up, confused: her clothes were torn to pieces, scattered everywhere, and she was smeared in dirt and leaves and gluey, crusty semen.  _ What happened last night? _ She rubbed her temples as memory came back: the storm, the thunder, being chased, being embraced, being…

A shift of her weight confirmed her memories. Her pussy was  _ sore _ , wrecked as hell, puffy and tender and there was a tiny bit of dried blood on her thighs, too. “Ooh,” she said through her teeth, getting to her knees. “We put you through a lot, huh?” The scratches on her waist and hips were swollen and tender, but scabbing over as she ran her fingers down them.  _ Where are my underpants? _ She knew she’d taken them off, but she didn’t see them anywhere.

A glance around the clearing confirmed that she was alone. No sign of another person, not even footprints, marked the ground.  _ Did he leave? Where is he?  _ Rey tried to brush leaves off her legs, and stood up, making her way around the wet bracken, boot-clad feet clomping awkwardly. “Hello?” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Hello? Solovei? Are you there?”

There was no answer from the woods. A breeze drifted across her bare body, and she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.  _ Where do I go now? _ She was still lost, stuck in the woods, and now she didn’t even have Solovei to guide her back to the house.  _ I’m always left behind. Unwanted. No. Was it all a dream? Did I imagine everything? _ She started walking, shivering as she stumbled over the damp ground.  _ God, I’m going to catch a UTI or a yeast infection, I’m going to get lost even more, I… _

The trees parted, and she came out, screening her eyes against the sunlight, blinded for a moment. Her vision adjusted, and she saw that there was a cliff in front of her, about twenty feet out, overlooking the valley below. Piatra Niamƫ was visible, the clear summer morning slanting golden over the distant city of cream stone and red tile, the same as it had every morning for a thousand years.

At the edge of the cliff, his back to the forest, sat a man.


	9. In Which We Find Our End

The man on the cliff’s edge was a total stranger to her, and yet something about the way he sat seemed familiar. Rey took a cautious step forward. The back was broad, pale as if he’d barely ever seen sunlight, spattered with beauty marks, and heavily scarred: a wide pucker-mark rested at the small of it, a long, winding scar trailed from the left shoulder blade to the spine, and a host of smaller, inch-long scars dotted the whole expanse. He was very obviously naked, and his long black hair fell in gentle, air-dried tangles. It was pulled forward across his shoulder, but a few straggling locks showed it was almost long enough to reach the ground where he sat.

She knew that hair, that general shape, but not the marks or scars. _Is he using a glamour?_ _And why is this one so beaten up-looking?_ Rey took another step, unsure. “Solovei?” she called, trying to sound more sure of herself than she was. 

The man stiffened and turned, looking up at her with wide, triangular eyes. A scar ran through the right side of his face, down his throat, and ended in a squiggle on his chest, and he had more scars marking his thick arms and chest and legs, but that was… it couldn’t be anyone but… “ _ Domina _ ?” he asked, soft and careful, hands resting on his dirty knees.

“You…” She crept closer and squatted down by him, trying to figure out what was going on. He seemed almost in awe, and did not shy away from her touch as she reached for his face, tracing the scar, which felt as real as anything, even though she knew better. She touched the scraggly beard, too, rubbing the coarse dark hair on his chin. “Did you forget how to speak English?”

“No,” he answered, eyes finding hers. Hazel-green, dark rosewood at the centers: she knew those eyes. “I remember now. You are... you are Rey, my Rey.”

What was wrong with him? “I… yeah, I am. Why are you using an illusion? It’s just us.” Rey knelt down, feeling overly clumpy in her boots and nothing else, and looked him over. He didn’t seem hurt at all. His forearms were thickly corded with muscle, and dusted with soft black hair like his powerful thighs, and she tried to not look between his legs, but couldn’t help it— there were dark, coarse curls and a thick, half-hard cock stirring between his thighs. It seemed almost invasive to look at that, so she turned her attention back to the marks on his chest. “You’ve never shown me... scars like this before.”

“I woke,” he murmured, so softly that she thought maybe he wasn’t listening, “to the birds singing. I felt the sun was coming up, and I stood to find it, to see it… I thought I would die. I felt I would die. I forgot… forgot so much, and sat here waiting for death to take me, and yet when the sun came up and touched its light on me, it all… burned away.” He held his hands up to look at them, front to back. “Gone. I… I cannot change my glamours anymore. I am weak, and slow like any man.” 

“You…” Rey caught her breath, tears in her eyes. “Oh, my _god_ , you mean you— you’re not—”

“I am a  _ man _ ,” he whispered, looking at his trembling, pale hands, turning them over again and again. “It feels like… it was all a dream.”

“We have to get back to the house,” said Rey, her head spinning. “Huc will have a fit, and we need clothes, and— and— oh, shit, nobody’s going to believe this. You have to get something to eat. Can you stand up?”

Solovei’s eyes were very wet. “Do you think, Miss Keyner, that I might be permitted to have a new life, one of… of joy, and peace, and aiding others? With a peaceful end when it comes, and a… a companion still, if she will have me?”

Rey threw her arms around him and began to cry, which made him start crying, which made Rey laugh and knock him over so that they lay together, tangled up and sobbing and kissing, on the edge of a cliff in the bright soft sunlight of morning.

“Yes,” she whispered, fingers combing gently through his hair to make him shiver. “Yes, yes,  _ yes _ .”

* * *

When they stumbled up to the kitchen door, both naked and smeared in dirt, Huc was waiting with blankets. He did not seem shocked in the least by Solovei’s appearance, and helped both of them upstairs immediately, but not into their separate rooms— he took them both to Solovei’s room, which Rey had never seen before.

She’d expected a dank, dark Gothic room with black brocade and red velvet, maybe with ripped up curtains, but was surprised to find a clean, modern bedroom that looked like it had come out of a catalogue: white, gray, pops of blue. There wasn’t any time to explore, though, because Huc was hustling them into the bathroom and sitting both of them down on stools, clicking his tongue and examining them both. 

“I will go fetch the first-aid kit,” he said, looking at Rey’s scuffed knees. “It is a wonder you did not come down with the influenza out there in the cold and the wet, Miss Keyner.”

“Could we get some hot tea, too?” asked Rey, still shivering under the blanket he’d given her. 

“Of course. Conte?”

Solovei raised his head. He’d barely spoken since they’d come back. “Food, please,” he said, swaying a little where he sat. 

“Yes. At once.” Huc left, and Rey reached over to the huge copper tap on the enormous soaking tub, twisting it on and letting hot, fresh water gush out. Solovei jumped a little at the noise, then relaxed into stillness as Rey shucked off the blanket and started unlacing her muddy boots. 

She peeled off her socks and dumped them on the marble, dipping her hand into the filling tub. “Good and hot. Let’s… do you want to take a bath?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes half-shut, as if he was drunk, or overwhelmed, or exhausted. Maybe all three. Rey gnawed her lip and helped him up, carefully settling his large body down in the hot water and listening to the little moan he made when the heat soaked into his body. 

“You okay?” she asked quietly, climbing in with him and sighing in relief. “Oh, that’s nice. Good and hot.”

“I… I don’t know,” he said, evading her eyes with a downcast expression. “I am… I am hungry. And tired. I feel I could sleep for a year.”

Rey laughed. “You can sleep as long as you want once I get you cleaned up.”

Solovei shook his head. “You shouldn’t do that for me. Tend to yourself first. I…” His eyes tracked the lines on her body, the faint scratches from claws that no longer existed, the stains on her body, the dirt, and he pressed his mouth into a line and looked away, ashamed.

“Stop that,” she said, cupping his chin in her fingers and pulling him back to look at her. “I liked it, okay? I liked it a lot. I might actually kind of miss it now.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Miss it? If you miss it so much, then I will gladly make up for it to ensure you do not miss it.”

Rey opened her mouth, blushing, but Huc came in with a covered tray and left it on the counter before she could reply. “Food and tea,” he said crisply. “I will leave you to it.”

“Huc,” said Solovei, eyes still trained on Rey, “will you turn down the bed?”

“Ah. Yes, Conte.” He nodded and left the bathroom, discreetly shutting the door behind him.

He didn’t even wait for Rey to breathe before lunging forward with a big slosh of hot water, gripping her by the waist and pulling her into his lap. She yelped and clutched his hair, trying to steady herself, and Solovei grunted, mouthing at her throat. “You are— you—” He didn’t seem to be able to find the words. 

“Let’s,” she panted, trembling against his broad body, “let’s get clean first, okay, and then, then we can go to bed—”

“You are likely still sore,” he muttered, kissing her cheek and slowing his movements. “ I had forgotten. Forgive me.”

“Not, um. Not that sore,” she half-lied, wriggling down on his hips under the water. Something else was pressing up against her body, something thick and firm and hot, and she fought to not reach down and grab it.  _ I need to shower. I need a bath. I have to get clean before— _

“Rey,” he whispered, and both hands came exploring up from her ass to her shoulders, tentative and gentle. “Let me wash you first.”

So she did. She sat in the water and let him scrub her with soap from head to toe, washing away the dirt and mud and assorted substances she didn’t want to think about at the moment, and when she was clean, she returned the favor and washed off all the dirt from his knees, his back, his hair where it had gotten tangled again, and combed it out until it was a sleek, wet black slick from his head to the water. 

When he got out of the tub and they had both dried off, they sat on the floor of the bathroom wrapped in towels together while Rey gulped at her tea and Solovei tore into the sandwiches Huc had brought up and gave her a few of them. Her body was still a little tender from the night before, but it was nothing some slow, careful stuff with lube wouldn’t fix if she wanted a second round. Rey wondered if Solovei had lube in his nightstand. She wondered if it would be any different, having sex with this human version of him… and then she had to consciously remind herself that there was no  _ version: _ this was a man.

“Rey,” he said, very softly. 

She looked up. Solovei’s eyes were trained directly on her face, his damp hair drying into softly waving locks. “Y-yeah?” she asked.

“Shall we go to bed?”

“Please,” she whispered.

* * *

They crashed into the bedroom together, a tangle of wet hair and skin, and fell down on the freshly-turned back bed, Rey under Solovei as he got his knees up to the mattress and lifted her hips to move her back, further in. “Big bed,” she panted, trying to kiss his face.

“Custom made,” he explained, and let out a grunt as she grabbed between his legs. “I—”

“Oh,” Rey said, trying to gather her thoughts about the size of the appendage currently pressing against her fingers and palm. Or, at least, whatever part of it could fit in her hand, anyway. “That’s— you— _ oh _ —”

Solovei was so flustered he could barely speak. “I, I, I chose a smaller size for my glamour because I didn’t want to frighten you—”

“I saw, I saw you kinda soft up out in the woods, I thought, I didn’t think it would be  _ this _ big—”

“Is this bad, or—”

“No, no, it’s  _ definitely _ not bad. Definitely good,” Rey stammered, trying to see down between them. “Just, just, um, I’m still a little sore. Let’s, uh, go a little slowly. Please.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, and shuffled backward, half-shy, and brushed her thigh with his fingers. “It is… very pleasant to not have to worry about the claws.”

They could definitely both agree that was a change for the better. “Yes,” Rey said, and let out a squeak as his thumb pressed lightly at her clit, back and forth, gentle and careful. “S-Solovei, I, I just remembered I don’t, I never asked your first name—”

“Oh,” he said, bending down a little to kiss her upper thighs as his index and middle fingers slipped into her body together, stretching just enough to make her squirm. “Yes, I suppose it never came up, did it? It’s Vienijamin.”

“You, your, you said  _ Vien _ once—” Rey’s head was spinning as she gripped the bedsheets. His head was between her legs, his mouth and fingers working away with placid gentleness at her sore wreck of a pussy, and she could  _ probably _ squeeze out one more quick orgasm. “Vien, is it o-okay, can I call y—”

“ _ Yes _ ,” he rumbled between her legs, and it sent her over the edge, shuddering down into warmth and soreness and peace as she soaked his fingers to the knuckles and went limp. She became aware of a large body moving over hers, and a hot, soft mouth on her throat. He was kissing her, his voice soft and gentle. “Yes. Vien, I’ll be your Vien, gladly—nobody has called me that in millennia.”

_ And I’ll have a name, _ she thought, reaching up to cradle his head to her chest.  _ A name I chose, a name I love that means something to me.  _ “Okay,” she panted, stroking his hair, and looked over to the bedside table. Her eyes narrowed. “Are those… flowers?”

Solovei— no, not Solovei, Vien now—lifted his head and snorted a little half-laugh out of his nose. “Huc,” he said, rolling off her and sitting up. “Always sending messages through the arrangements. He was a great one for floriography. Very elaborate in his messages, too. The yellow roses there are for devoted friendship, and the dahlias are for dignity, nasturtiums for victory, and that yew branch signifies sorrow. He’s telling me… no, us, that he acknowledges our victory here, and he will always be at our sides as a friend with dignity.”

“And the sorrow?” she asked, looking up at him.

A shadow passed across the Conte’s face. “Mm. I expect realizing that you only have fifty more years or so with an old friend you have known for centuries might be sorrowful.”

“Oh,” said Rey, closing her eyes. “Poor Huc. Will he be okay?”

“Of course he will.” Vien lay back down and trailed his fingertips along her ribs, sighing. “We can leave him half the fortune I’ve amassed and have enough left over to do as we please.”

“About that,” said Rey, enjoying the sensation of thick fingers stroking her side, “I have some ideas about what the money we have could, uh, be used for.”

“Ah? Do tell.” His hand brushed her breast, and Rey fought a grin. 

“I’ll tell you after we get into town and get ourselves married. You better go get some clothes on, though, ‘cause you can’t just magic them on anymore, and I want you to look nice.”

“I can… look nice,” he said, flushing. “Shall I have Huc cut my hair?”

“Oh, I’ll miss it,” Rey muttered, trailing her fingers through the locks. “Maybe just to the shoulders. I have to have something to hold onto. In fact… I’ll test out the haircut before we go into town.” She raised an eyebrow at him, trying to look sexy, but sure she was failing completely.

Apparently it wasn’t a failure, because Solovei almost choked. “I’ll— I’ll just—” He eagerly wrenched himself up out of bed. “Go, go get— Huc! Huc?” He ran for the door, and Rey smothered herself with thousand-count thread sheets and tried to hide the fact that she was laughing her ass off.

* * *

**FOREIGN DONOR SECURES STUNNING CHANGE IN POLICIES OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION**

_ NEW YORK, NEW YORK— Conte Vienijamin Solovei, hailing from the Eastern European country of Romania, and his American-born wife, Contesa Rey Solovei, landed at JFK early in the morning of July nineteenth. After a meeting with the heads of the DNC in Washington, DC, these two have managed to single-handedly overhaul the nomination of Senator Joe Biden (D, Delaware) as the Democratic Party’s running-mate, and secured Senator Bernie Sanders (D, Vermont) as the new nominee, shocking millions across the nation. _

_ “I didn’t think that was actually possible,” said Ms. Rose Tico, lately of Brooklyn but recently, as she said, relocated to Manhattan, as the Times interviewed people in Times Square. “You know? But hey, everything’s possible with money, isn’t it?” She gave a little self-deprecating laugh and indicated her Burberry coat. “Old rich out of touch dudes can [expletive] a [expletive]. Excuse me. I gotta go drop off a bracelet to be repaired at Tiffany’s for, uh, my friend.”  _

_ Multiple crowds gathered in protest, as well, including several factions of Young Republicans, who made their opinions clear on the steps of 30 Rockefeller. “We’re protesting NBC and the left wing media for not seeing, um, that, you know, how are they gonna say Russia interfered with the election last time and then let this Russian guy come in and bribe them to change the nominee to a socialist Marxist communist?” said Roy Raines III, a twenty-seven-year-old, self described “bitcoin analyst” from New Jersey. “It’s just proof that the Dems are all a bunch of communist liberals who want free everything just handed to them.” When it was pointed out by this Times journalist that Russia is, in fact, a separate country than Romania, that no money has been proven to change hands at all, and also that the Conte’s wife was American-born and holds dual citizenship, Mr. Raines stated, “She’s a gold-digger, then. Fucking slut. All women are the same.” _

_ “Right,” this journalist stated, perhaps crudely, “and the current First Lady, a former model who married a very wealthy man several decades older than she is, could not be described whatsoever as a ‘gold-digger’.”  _

_ Mr. Raines declined any further comment. _

_ Washington also saw its fair share of protests and rallies, both in favor of and against this upheaval to procedure, and the police in D.C. report that they can expect to see plenty more traffic as the week goes on. In New York, the Brooklyn Bridge saw its fair share of foot traffic as people marched over the river, waving signs in celebration of the DNC’s decision reversal. The Empire State Building, perhaps controversially, has glowed bright blue at its peak every night to celebrate the landmark choice.  _

_ The Conte and Contesa have remained secluded, whereabouts unknown, choosing not to speak to any media outlet whatsoever, and this journalist cannot blame them. With the uproar over their revolutionary influence in full effect, perhaps we should all lie low for a while. One thing must be said, however, and that is that when someone is given an opportunity and ability to effect a change, even at a risk to their own safety or reputation, what they choose to do will reflect the quality of a person’s true character like a mirror. _

**_Gwendolyn Phasma_ **

**_Human affairs, women’s rights, health_ **

**_Thank you, and good night from New York._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cannot even begin to say how much it means to me that so many people have bookmarked and read and commented on this silly little fic of mine. who knew what the reylos wanted was MONSTERFUCKING???? you are all lovely and I appreciate you so much.


	10. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I promised an epilogue for a cancer fundraiser, it met its goal, and HERE WE ARE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Iji is Yoruba for "storm" which I put in as a nod to Finn being a stormtrooper while still paying some homage to John Boyega's Nigerian background  
> \- this is Solovei and Rey's apartment in NYC on Fifth by Central Park: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/988-5th-Ave-PENTHOUSE-New-York-NY-10075/2080661205_zpid/?

Manhattan teemed with life, even in the cold: a veritable jungle of concrete, steel, glass, steam, and asphalt. Vienijamin Solovei stood for a moment on the sidewalk, listening to the life around him, the mass of humanity that might have swept a lesser man off his feet and away down the pavement. Even the winter storm brewing overhead could not sway him from being out of the open air.  _ A country I missed watching grow. A young country, a hopeful one.  _ How fast it had all changed since he had last been here!

“Hey,” said a voice he knew and loved, and he turned with a smile: the Contesa was exiting the car he’d just departed, Huc holding the door for her. Her lean, fine legs in their warm tights ended in a pair of buttery suede Rossi heels; her Burberry coat swished about her knees. No amount of money could buy the look on her face as she gazed at him, however.  _ My wife, my darling, my heart's star.  _ “We’re going to be late, come on.” Her breath smoked in the cold winter air.

“Ah yes. Dinner. Shall we?” He extended his arm, and for a moment allowed himself to dream of her, imagining she had been with him for all those lonely millennia: his Rey in a flowing gown with her hair braided, speaking Thracian; Rey attending a formal dinner in Rome, wearing a chiton and bracelets of gold; the Byzantine Empire—dabbling in politics in Tudor England—watching the Industrial Revolution together—traveling, eating, speaking.  _ It is not enough time, this time I have with her, but God in Heaven, I am grateful nonetheless.  _ “We must not keep them waiting, then.” Huc followed: Rose had insisted  _ all _ of them come, and he was looking forward to finally meeting Rey’s friends personally. 

She beamed and took Solovei's arm, half-leading him up to the door of the building and pressing the call button. “Rose is going to have a  _ fit: _ she’s wanted us over for dinner for, like, weeks, and it’s almost Christmas. Try not to be too old-fashioned, okay?”

“I am not  _ that _ old-fashioned,” he mumbled, trying to sneak a glance at his appearance as they stepped inside and headed for the elevator. The interior was mirrored, and Vien surveyed them as they stood together. There was Rey, young and vibrant and full of life, and there was he himself— scarred, old, dour-faced, in a bespoke suit. His despondency must have shown, because his wife slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and smiled at his reflection. 

“You look very nice,” she told him softly.

“He ought to: I chose that suit,” said Huc, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. 

Vien sighed. He had met Rey’s friend Rose briefly once before, but the rest he did not know well yet, and he was sure they would all be young like her and Rose: he expected to feel every moment of his two thousand years by the end of the night.  _ Why did I agree to this? _

The doors slipped open, chiming pleasantly, and he stepped out into a finely-worked foyer as Rey let out a shriek like an invading Celt and launched herself toward an equally howling Rose, who embraced her in excitement. “Rose!” she said, turning her head. “Well, you’ve met the Conte already, right, because you—”

“Not, like,  _ formally, _ ” said Rose, looking awestruck, and stood there for a moment as if she had no idea what to say. “Um, hi,” she said, settling for an awkward curtsy. “I’m Rose Tico, you saw me running through the penthouse that one time.”

“Yes, and I am pleased to finally make your formal acquaintance.” Vien took her hand and politely kissed it. She burst into giggles and blushed, looking at Rey, who grinned back at her. “And this is Huc: he is simply irreplaceable and might as well be a member of the family.”

“H-hello,” said Rose, dancing over to Huc. Vien was treated to a bewildering sight: Huc was gaping at her, a blush staining the end of his pale, freckled nose. Huc had— to be frank— forgotten his manners,  _ Huc _ who never forgot anything in his life and who had, up until this very moment, been deemed unflappable by everyone who knew him. “Rose,” said she, indicating herself and beaming.

“A very great pleasure,” Huc said, regaining his footing and choosing to bow shortly instead of kissing her hand. Vien had no more time to ruminate on this odd event, because two men were approaching: both shorter than him, one olive-skinned with dark, thick, curling hair and beautiful dark eyes (and here Vien’s mind, shaped by living history, began to try to fit him into a geographical category: Italian, perhaps? The South of France?) the other with rich, dark skin and a bright smile. “Ah,” said Vien, bowing slightly. 

“Oh, this is Poe Dameron—” the perhaps-Italian gave a stilted bow in response, brow furrowing, “and Finn Iji.” The dark-skinned man grinned at Vien and jabbed his hand out at him, thumb up: Vien took it to shake, but was instead pulled into a massive hug: Finn Iji had very brawny shoulders and a warm voice.

“Hey, man, Conte, whatever— good to meet you finally. Man, I can’t believe you were  _ real _ the whole time.”

“Very much so,” said Vien, half-breathless from the force of the embrace. “A pleasure, Mr. Iji.”

Finn let go of him, still smiling. “Just Finn, that’s fine. And, hey, thanks for the apartment. This place is  _ nuts. _ ” Finn spread his hands out, encompassing the whole of the building: foyer, great room, dining room, balcony, bedrooms, two separate kitchens, bathrooms. “About ten times the size of anywhere I’ve ever lived in Brooklyn.”

“You can thank Rey for that,” said Vien, smiling back. “She was very particular. I was all too happy to help.” It sounded so strange, calling his wife by her Christian name in front of strangers instead of  _ Miss Keyner _ as he’d grown so accustomed to—  _ Contesa Solovei  _ was the proper form of address, but these people had known her all her life, he reminded himself, so it could not be that intimate.

“Well, either way, it’s great,” said Poe Dameron. “I have space to actually  _ live _ .”

* * *

At dinner, Rey was trying to focus on the meal—a delicious, if a little bit confusing, mishmash of pho,  _ arroz con frijoles,  _ beef brisket curry, and fried plantains— when Rose jabbed her in the side with her elbow. 

“Seriously, what is the _d_ _ eal _ with Huc?” she whispered, very quietly, as Finn and Solovei had a lively discussion about the points of American cuisine versus traditional Nigerian and and South American counterparts. “He’s so quiet. Does he hate the food? Should we have done, I don’t know, Romanian meatloaf? Or turnips? Or whatever you eat in Romania?”

Rey glanced up. Huc was studying his plate and very carefully taking bites, chewing slowly and focusing on nothing else. “Oh, god. No, he’s fine, he’s like the live-in butler, but he’s been with the Conte for years.”  _ Hundred and hundreds of years,  _ she mentally annotated, and gulped at her glass of red wine. “He’s great. Good friend.  _ Turnips, _ seriously?”

Rose shook her head, trying to keep from laughing. “I don’t know! I think of Romania and just see, like… peasants in the fog with hoes, digging up potatoes.”

“You know they do have cars. Internet. Malls.”

“I know! Okay, okay, sorry. Does he not like the pho? I really tried, but I just can’t get it quite like my mom can. Or my sister.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Rey popped another bite of brisket curry into her mouth. “Did you get my Christmas present yet?”

“If it was that giant package that arrived from Dior yesterday, then yes, and no, I totally didn’t peek.” Rose grinned. 

Rey couldn’t help but feel warm all over: it was so nice to be able to buy things for people, to give gifts that would  _ last _ . Being richer than God had its perks, and one of those was being able to buy a massive apartment for every single one of her friends to live in. She’d asked if they hadn’t wanted separate places, but they refused: they wanted to be together, all three of them. She suddenly wished she had Beebee to curl up in her lap, but Beebee was a zillion miles away being spoiled to death by the housekeeper that Solovei had hired in Huc’s absence, since Rey didn’t want to traumatize her with yet another transatlantic flight. 

Across the table, Poe was telling a story about the time he’d had to ram someone’s Mercedes-Benz in his ambulance on the way to the scene of an accident, and Solovei was listening with mute fascination written all over his face. “And the owner did not challenge you— I mean, attempt to seek payment for the damages?”

Poe snorted. “Oh, no. Like, a lawsuit? He was in the way with his music turned up to a million and didn’t even hear my siren. Tried to complain at the scene and the cops escorting me to the accident laughed in his face.”

“One thing the police in this country are good for, I suppose,” said Huc dryly, which got a laugh from both Rose and Finn. His nose turned very pink, and he composed himself hurriedly. Rey saw it and shot a glance at Rose, mouthing  _ oh my god what? _

_ What? _ Rose mouthed back, hiding it behind a glass of wine. “I heard the cops in Romania are kind of corrupt, too.”

“Oh, beyond a doubt,” said Huc. “Although there is security in knowing you can pay them off for nearly anything, Miss Tico. Beyond that, entirely useless.”

“Hey, should we watch a movie after dinner?” asked Finn, wiping his mouth. 

Solovei instantly perked up. “I would very much like that, Mr.— ah, Finn.” 

* * *

“How late were you guys planning on staying?” asked Rose, finishing her wine and standing to take her plate to one of the kitchens. “Tonight, I mean. If you had plans—”

“Oh, no, we didn’t,” Rey assured her, lowering the dishwasher door and sliding her dirty plate into the rack. “Just, like, going home and passing out, probably.”

“Oh,  _ just _ sleeping,” Rose teased, eyes twinkling.

“Oh my god,  _ stop, _ ” hissed Rey, a grin threatening to split her cheeks. 

“What? He’s sexy. In kind of a… I don’t know. He’s not that old. He looks like a member of the Mafia or something, with all those scars.”

“He’s not in the mob, Rose. Jesus.”

Rose leaned against the counter. “Well, maybe you can find him a distant cousin or something for me,” she said, and this time the smile didn’t quite reach her warm brown eyes.

Rey felt a sinking sensation in her belly. “Oh, no. Rose, don’t tell me you and Finn broke up  _ again. _ ”

“It’s… complicated,” she said, rubbing her temples. “We’re still  _ friends _ and we still live in the same apartment but he said he didn’t see our relationship really going anywhere after two years and… well, I had to kind of agree. Like, there’s nothing  _ happening. _ We have lunch dates and hang out and stuff but the spark’s just kind of. Gone. And… I don’t know. Maybe a break is a good thing. Maybe we’ll decide it’ll be permanent. But at least we’re on good terms.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re communicating,” Rey said, at a loss. 

“Yeah. Breaking the news to my mom was a pain, though. Paige is already engaged to that lawyer she met in Midtown so Mom was acting like I was the family disappointment for being single at twenty-six. As if anyone my age knows what they’re doing with their life. And then you went and got married to a freakin’ Eastern European count.” Rose gave a bitter little laugh.

Rey set the dishes down and wrapped her arm around her. “Hey. If I can do anything…”

With a sigh, Rose hugged her back. “It’s okay. I do appreciate not having to fix ambulances anymore. But some problems you can’t just throw money at to fix.”

Rose had always been a hopeless romantic, really, since the day Rey had met her: that had been clear, even under the grease and coveralls. She was a sucker for Jane Austen film adaptations, she loved rom-coms, and she’d cried listening to Taylor Swift’s  _ folklore _ for the first time. Rey felt a stab of regret somewhere in her chest: if only she could just hand Rose happiness, she would do it. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. 

* * *

The movie Finn and Poe chose was  _ Arrival _ , which Solovei had never seen, and which Rey figured it was high time she watched again. She curled up on the sofa by her husband, who sat properly, the blanket they shared laid flat on his lap but curled up around her shoulders in a tumble of soft cotton. 

_ He’s still not great with strangers, is he? _ Beneath the blanket, she took his hand as Poe and Finn tumbled into the other sofa, Rose flopped down sideways in the easy chair, and Huc sat in the other chair primly. The movie started, and Rey watched Solovei.

Her thoughts got lost somewhere around the time that Dr. Banks was in the truck heading to the alien ship. Solovei was drinking it in with wide eyes, focused wholly on the screen: she knew for a fact that the last movie he’d bothered to see on the silver screen was  _ The Wizard of Oz _ in the late thirties, preferring instead to focus on the physical artifacts of the cultures that moved past and over him. 

_ Vien, _ she mentally corrected herself, thankful the dimness of the living room hid her blush. It was still weird thinking about him by his first name, not his surname, and not just as  _ the Conte, _ even though they’d been married for about six months at this point. He seemed to have to catch himself every so often, too, swerving off a  _ Miss Keyner _ to a polite  _ Contesa _ or a far more intimate  _ Rey.  _ She shifted her position and leaned her head on his shoulder.  _ We’ll get used to it eventually. _

On the screen, Louise dreamed of heptapods, and Solovei’s mouth fell open as he processed the plot: the bombshell was dropped that learning the language could let you see time as non-linear, and the music swelled as it was revealed that her daughter hadn’t been born yet. Rose was sniffling in her chair, wiping her eyes. Huc noticed and immediately offered her a handkerchief. Rey noticed Solovei was also weeping, very silently, tears tracking in blue shining streaks down his face from the reflection of the television. She squeezed his hand, and he tightened his grip on hers, his mouth twitching. 

As soon as the movie ended, he escaped to the bathroom. Rose kept apologizing and scrubbing her eyes with Huc’s hanky. “Oh, my god, it’s just so emotional, you know? It gets me every time. Like, the fact that she  _ knows _ her kid is gonna die so young and chooses to have her and love her anyway? So beautiful. I’m so sorry. Ugh.”

“There is nothing to be ashamed of,” said Huc softly from his chair. “I found the musical score compelling as well as the story.”

“Oh, the music’s great. The composer was nominated for a Golden Globe, wasn’t he?” asked Poe, rolling his sleeves up and heading to the mini bar. “You guys want a drink?”

“I’m okay,” said Rose, still trying to dry her eyes. Finn walked by and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder, and something in her expression seemed to crumble. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she repeated, sniffling. 

Rey got up and tracked down Solovei. He was in one of the powder rooms, splashing cold water on his face. “You doing okay?” she asked, handing him a towel.

“Perfectly fine,” he said, sounding a little strangled. He cleared his throat. “You ought to rejoin your companions.”

“They’re fine. They’re making drinks and I don’t want one. You’re sure you don’t want someone to give you a hug?”

He sighed and turned toward her, opening his arms, and she stepped into them, resting her cheek on his chest as he embraced her closely. “It was the story that did it,” he murmured. “Being able to see all of time: knowing that someone you love would die long before you, and you must go on without them.”

“Yeah, I get that,” said Rey, inhaling the scent of his faint, expensive cologne. “But that’s past. You’re with me now. For good.”

“I am. It doesn’t make the past millennia any less unbearable, however,” he said mournfully, and kissed the top of her head. “Shall we depart in, say, half an hour?”

“I think that’ll work. Come on. Let’s go be social before we head back to the house. You go first, though, ‘cause I have to pee.”

He chuckled and let her go. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen, then.”

Rey shut the door behind him, did her business, washed her hands, and checked her face.  _ Poor Rose, _ she thought, sighing. 

* * *

On the way back out, she saw Poe and Finn chatting in the kitchen with Solovei, who had put aside his melancholy attitude and was eagerly talking about the music of the film, and Rose and Huc still sitting in the living room, visible through the archway. She slipped past and hovered by the arch, pretending to fiddle with her watch as she eavesdropped.

“It’s just, like. Been hard the last couple of weeks,” Rose was saying quietly, still sounding downcast.

“I can imagine. It cannot be easy to lose such a companion,” said Huc, and Rey fought to keep her mouth straight— since when had  _ Huc _ ever spoken about emotions? “But you seem resilient, Miss Tico, if that is not too forward to observe.”

She laughed a little. “Are all Romanians this formal when they talk?” she asked, sounding like she was smiling.

“No,” said Huc, sounding, unbelievably, as if he might be smiling too. “No: I have many years of practice in formality. Not so much in informality. Though if I was asked, I might be persuaded to be more informal.”

“More informal,” echoed Rose. “You— not to be, um, rude, Huc, but you look like you were born in a suit.”

“I have been known at times to wear blue jeans,” he said, pretending to sound affronted.

“Oh, no way. I’d like to see that,” she said, laughing.

Rey felt an awful desire to step in snatch her by the throat, and she turned the corner, smiling. Rose looked up and Huc jumped as if he’d been shot, then leaped to his feet respectfully. “We should go out to Central Park this week,” Rey said brightly. “Huc, you can sit. I’m just passing through.”

Rose almost clapped. “Oh, that would be so _ fun _ ! We could bring hot chocolate in a big thermos and build a snowman. Oh, and we should go by the Rockefeller Center and go skating! And watch the Christmas tree light up!”

“Yes,” said Huc, sounding as if he’d been struck in the gut with a baseball bat. “Yes, very much so. I— pardon me, Miss Tico; I must speak to the Contesa—” He hurried out, looking paler than usual, and Rey followed him to the hall as Rose hurried to the kitchen to tell the other men about their plans. 

Rey turned on him once they were out of earshot. “Huc, what the hell is the matter with y—”

“She’s beautiful,” he said at once, all the color drained from his face. “Miss Tico, I mean. Your Rose. Oh, God. I apologize, Contesa.” Huc supported himself against the wall, covering his eyes with his free hand. “I should not speak so freely.”

“I  _ knew it, _ ” said Rey, fist-pumping. “You have a crush on Rose. Oh, my  _ god. _ ”

“Do not torment me about it any further. I will— I will endeavor to remove myself from—”

“What? No! I think it’s great! Why else do you think I suggested an outing to Central Park?”

His pale green eyes almost bugged out of his head. “You— you approve, then?”

“Of course I approve! She was all concerned at dinner that you didn’t like the food.”

Huc swallowed. “I— she was?”

“Yes. Don’t even worry about it. I’ll work it out. Let’s go say our goodbyes and head home, okay?”

* * *

After all farewells were said and the date was set for the Central Park outing, Huc drove Solovei and Rey back to their own rented penthouse apartment at 988 Fifth Avenue. Snow was beginning to fall, thick and sticky, as they exited the car and took the private elevator up. 

She liked their apartment here: it was decidedly not modern, with its carpets thrown on the floor, the warm, cushy seating, and the homey clutter of antiques that put her in mind of the study at home in Romania. Huc said a quick good night and went up to his bedroom on the second floor while Solovei stripped out of his coat and tossed it to the back of the sofa carelessly, rolling his sleeves up and gazing out the frosted window to the city below with its twinkling lights. “The city that never sleeps,” he said quietly.

Rey flexed her bare toes on the carpet and joined him. “But the people in it do,” she told him. “You’re not tired?”

“Not yet.” He sighed. “I’ll come to bed later,  _ inima mea.  _ Don’t stay up in the cold on my account.”

“Okay.” She kissed his cheek, and he half-smiled, turning to watch her go as she stepped into the master suite and left the door open a crack behind her. 

* * *

Rey really,  _ really _ loved the bathroom: the tub was so big she and Solovei could both fit in it comfortably and the floors were heated. She took a long, hot bath, washed her hair, brushed her teeth, and changed into her warmest pajamas before sliding into their bed. Up here, the noise from the city was inaudible, the soft silence surrounding her just like the sheets and blankets. She burrowed in and closed her eyes, thinking about Central Park and snowmen. 

It was just beginning to become a dream when a weight depressed down on the king-size mattress, the faintest scent of expensive cologne meeting her nose. “Mmm,” she mumbled, burrowing deeper. He never demanded sex, only readily acquiescing when  _ she _ wanted it, which wasn’t going to be tonight, so she didn’t stir much.

“Shh,” he whispered, tucking her in and kissing her forehead. “I’m going to bathe. Sleep.”

She was asleep by the time he got into bed.

* * *

The next day dawned pale and cold. Rey looked out over Fifth and saw that the street below was sludgy and gray, dingy ice marking up the sidewalks, but as her gaze traveled over the Park, she saw that a thick blanket of soft, cold snow lay over the trees and ground. People were already walking through it, throwing snowballs: children were running in circles, dogs were rolling and barking. “It’s  _ perfect _ ,” she said, delighted, and Solovei smiled at her as she danced around and made a thermos of hot chocolate. “You’re gonna love the park in the winter."

“I found the fall quite lovely,” he said, winding a wool scarf around his throat and tucking in the ends. “All the colors.”

“It’s pretty in every season. You just have to— oh, Huc!” He had descended, in peacoat and scarf. “Hey! I hate to ask you to drive us, but I still don’t have my license and—”

“Think nothing of it, Contesa. I’m pleased to drive you anywhere you like.” 

“Did you do something different with your hair?” Solovei asked, narrowing his eyes as he scanned his friend. Rey chewed on her cheek to stop herself from laughing: Huc had apparently decided to deviate from his normal impeccable part and comb look to something more tousled, apparently in an attempt to imitate Poe’s hair. 

“Does it look bad?” Huc looked stricken. “I thought— perhaps, for this outing, something more casual.”

Solovei looked bewildered as Rey stepped in. “No, it’s fine,” she assured him, scrambling for her phone. “We won’t even have to drive, the park’s right there and Poe has a car now. I’ll text them and let them know we’re ready when they are.”

“Ah. I see. Thank you, Contesa.” 

“Try to relax a little,” she whispered as Solovei moved off to the kitchen to scrounge up breakfast. “Don’t be so nervous.”

“That is not useful advice,” he whispered back, fidgeting. 

“Eggs and bacon?” called Solovei, the hiss of the gas burner flickering on.

“Yes, please!” Rey called back, and quickly tugged a lock of hair further forward over Huc’s forehead. “There. Okay. No, it looks good. Wait— are you planning on telling Rose you’re, um, immortal?” She’d never dared to pry into the exact specifics of Huc’s nature, and she felt like maybe it was the same as with Solovei for so long: indefinable. 

“How on earth would I— no, not yet. Of course not. That— that can come later.”

“Okay, just keep it in mind. You know. Because I don’t know how Rose would react to, like, you turning into a giant thing with claws.”

“I do  _ not—” _

“Who’s talking about me?” asked Solovei, eyes gleaming with mischief as he poked his head out of the kitchen, a towel thrown over one shoulder.

“Nobody!” said Rey, laughing. “How are those eggs coming?”

Solovei grinned at her. “Nearly done. Come along. They’ll get cold.”

* * *

They met Rose, Poe, and Finn at one of the Fifth Avenue entrances, and Rey barely registered Rose’s excited chatter about the snow: Solovei slowed his pace until they were in the back, letting Huc walk with Rose in the front, Finn and Poe behind them in the middle. “I am not blind, you know,” he said into her ear. 

“Well, shit. Plans foiled.” Rey grinned. His nose was turning pink in the cold, and even the black knit cap shoved down over his ears couldn’t keep his cheeks from glowing red. “I’m not blind, either. You look cute.”

He made a tsking sound in his throat and turned away, eyes downcast. “Mm. The park is lovely.”

“Come on,” she insisted, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. “No compliments today?”

“Not in public,” he said tightly, and the scar on his face looked pale against the rosy flush of his cheeks. Rey felt a little disappointed, but kept walking, her boots crunching in the snow. She knew he would have much rather used a glamour to show his face to her friends— and the whole public, too: after the election they’d had to attend benefits and parties and a million events. Rey kind of wished she could throw on another face, too.  _ Maybe I could pretend to be, like, Scarlett Johansson for a day.  _

“Here!” Rose shouted from up ahead, and they all gathered around, chatting about the weather, and passed around the thermos of hot chocolate. Rey gulped it too fast and it burned her tongue, but she didn’t care: Solovei was half-smiling at Huc as he talked about the snow and Huc was looking everywhere but at Rose, nose and ears as red as cherries. “Someone needs to help me build a snowman. Who knows when we’ll get another chance like this, huh?”

“Global warming, baby,” said Poe, tossing back his cocoa and heading over. “Let’s do it.”

Huc scrambled to collect himself. “I—I’ll help, too,” he said, hurrying to Rose’s side. She smiled at him, and he looked for a second like he’d forgotten how to breathe, or talk. 

“Great! Poe, you find a nice flat spot. Huc’s gonna help me collect a giant snowball. Let’s go!”

* * *

“They’re a fine match,” said Solovei, watching Rose direct Huc to gather all the snow he could find as Finn and Poe heaped up a big pile on a flat area of ground in the park.

“You can say  _ cute couple,  _ you know,” Rey said, letting her hand rest on his gloved fingers. He didn’t like a lot of PDA, but he flipped his hand and tightened his grip on her palm. “I mean, hey. If it works out…”

“You forget he’s not mortal,” said Solovei very softly, leaning in. Rey sighed. “So it cannot work out.”

“Okay, then it’s a one night thing. Or a Christmas fling. Whatever. I just want her to be happy for a little while.”

Solovei’s nose flared slightly. “And Huc will depart pining.”

With just a little impatience, Rey retorted, “He’s got forever to get over it, then.”

Something about the set of Solovei’s jaw hardened. “And you would have said the same to me, had I remained in my prior state?”

“What? No! That was— that was different, we were supposed to get  _ married _ —”

“It’s no different to Huc, I assure you. He has never acted in such a manner before. Suffice it to say that he will feel her loss as keenly as I would have felt yours.”

“You’re projecting _ , _ ” Rey said, disbelief coloring her tone even though she was really trying to sound cool and impartial. “Have you even talked to Huc about it?”

Her husband’s face went red, his mouth tightening into a line. “I do not  _ need _ to talk to him: we have been together for nearly three hundred years and can read each other as well as—”

Rey became very aware of the old woman walking her dog and the young family who had stopped to give them a strange look. “People are  _ staring,  _ shut  _ up—” _

Without another word, Solovei turned and stalked off into the snow, leaving Rey standing there alone, tears cold in her eyes.

* * *

He stopped walking once his mind had ceased its frantic noise, by a large boulder on the shoveled path, and closed his eyes in shame.  _ I should not have lost my temper, _ he thought miserably, and clenched his hands into fists to keep himself at bay. 

Controlling himself had been somehow easier when he had been seven feet tall, with talons and fur. He had been able, then, to take his rages out on the forests, the unfeeling world: to tear stone to pieces and roar down his thunder. Now, he could do none of these things. The Contesa had suggested boxing: he did not trust his own strength yet. He hardly trusted it enough to be intimate with his own wife in the first several months, preferring her to take the lead in all matters of the marital bed.  _ Stripped of my form, I remain a monster, _ he thought bitterly, and turned his head, colliding with a person who fell back with an  _ oof _ and a spray of snow. 

“My apologies,” he said, reaching out to help up the person. It was a middle-aged woman, a curly tangle of silver-streaked hair that had once been dark emerging from her knit cap, and wearing thick glasses that had the effect of magnifying her startlingly green eyes. “Are you harmed?”

“Nah, but you been, ain’t you?” she asked, standing and brushing off her backside. He blinked: her accent was thoroughly New York-ish, and her clothing was distinctly ordinary: a sweatshirt that said  _ I LOVE NY  _ worn under a coat _ ,  _ a fanny pack embroidered with ferns, juniper, and wisteria that appeared to have been done by hand, high-waisted trousers, and thick snow boots. Her gloves were knit, and had the fingertips cut away. “And anyway, ain’t everyday I get knocked down by a giant in Central Park. Let me look at ya. Hold on.”

The green eyes blinked, and Solovei found himself trapped: that gaze was as compelling as the noonday sun in summer, bearing down, stripping away all of his pretensions and peering directly into his soul. He wanted to hide, to run, to shield himself— and then it was over, and she was fumbling through her waist bag, muttering to herself. “What— who—” he stammered, at a loss. 

“Nah, don’t ask me nothin’ you don’t really want the answer to,” she admonished, pulling out a sprig of witch hazel and slapping him sharply across the face with it. “There.”

“Ow,” he said flatly as the sting caught his skin. What was she doing? Why was he allowing some strange woman to slap him with a stick?

“Don’t be a big baby. And don’t worry, it’ll only start when the moon rises and end when it sets. Just get somewhere nice and quiet. You got some thinkin’ to do, and better that you do it alone.” She squinted at his left hand. “Or with your wife. I guess she already knows who you really are.”

“You’re a witch,” he said immediately, which earned him another smack on the other cheek with the twig. “Ow!”

“Mind your own business,” she said firmly. “Unless you  _ want _ everything reversed permanently.”

“Reversed— I— _ no— _ ”

She nodded smugly. "Yeah, that’s what I thought. Don’t make a fuss. You’re walkin’ around thinkin’, hey, what if all my problems are because I look like a man again and not a magic monster? Well, that ain’t true, but you oughta learn it yourself, I think. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And you, pal, are a very old dog.” She chuckled to herself. “And your friend ain’t you, either. Don’t forget that.”

“My— my friend,” stammered Solovei. Huc, she must mean Huc. “Yes. I mean, no. I won’t.”

“Good. Go on back, now. And for Pete’s sake, watch where you’re going.” She tucked everything back into her fanny pack and sauntered away, leaving Solovei standing there bewildered, his cheeks still smarting.

* * *

The evening ended fairly well, Rey thought, watching Huc and Rose skate around the Rockefeller Center as Poe and Finn drank hot cider. Solovei had come back and sheepishly apologized for his outburst, and told her he needed to tell her something important later, and she’d accepted his apology as nicely as she could. She knew it wasn’t easy for him, but something about his demeanor seemed a little strange as the day went on. He’d been checking the time of the moonrise on his phone for some reason, and hedging around weirdly, and just acting… not like his normal self. 

“We ought to go home,” he whispered into her ear as the sun set. “Remember I said I had something to tell you?”

“Yeah, what is it?” she asked, trying to be quiet. 

“Ah. Well. I ran into a… woman in the park, and I think— it’s silly of me, of course, but I think she put a spell on me.”

Rey gave him the most bewildered look on the planet. “You... met another woman?”

He looked just as confused. “What? Oh. No, I mean, a spell, a real spell. I think she was a witch.”

God, sometimes she felt like he didn’t know  _ anything.  _ “A witch. A witch in New York. Okay. Uh, I mean, I don’t think you have anything to be worried about, ‘cause look, we’ve all dabbled in weird stuff these days. I think Rose’s sister actually joined a coven once, you know, she had all these crystals in a stone bowl and an altar and—”

“I’m not talking about a modern sort of witch, what with the black cosmetics and the pentagrams and such. I mean—the old sort. Wise women. She knew what I was immediately. And she highly implied I would become my old form from moonrise to moonset tonight.”

“What the hell did you do to piss off a witch?” Rey whispered.

“Nothing! I mean, I did knock her down, but she wasn’t offended. She just said I ought to have time to think to myself, alone. I only wanted to warn you. I’m sure it isn’t— it won’t be anything to worry about. If she was right.”

“Well, I hope she’s right, because it’s going to be a little bit awkward having that charity dinner this weekend if you’re suddenly giant with claws and stuff again.” Rey sagged against the fence and sighed. “I guess we can dip out early. What’s the time for the moon to—”

“Seven oh-three,” said Solovei immediately. “We have thirty minutes to get back to the house.”

“Right. I’ll tell Huc I don’t feel well and tell him to stay here as long as he wants. I don’t want to mess up the evening for him and Rose. I mean, look how much fun they’re having.” Rey pointed at the couple, who were skating around and laughing: Huc guided her by her mittened hands, and Rose was giggling furiously and blushing. 

Solovei looked a little pale. “Indeed. I’ll make our apologies to the gentlemen.”

* * *

The apartment was chilly when they entered, shutting the door tight behind them: Solovei walked like he was in pain, and Rey hurried to turn the heat on as he shivered. “You look awful,” she said, flicking on a lamp. 

“I’m afraid it might. Hurt. A good deal,” he said thinly, one large pale hand pressing to his belly. “Ah, it feels as if I’m about to turn inside out.”

“Maybe it’s a kidney stone,” Rey suggested, hopefully pouring him a glass of water. “Maybe she wasn’t really a witch and was just messing with you.”

“A kidney stone,” he echoed, and gave a sick little smile. “I wish. Help me undress. Huc will never allow me to hear the end of it if I damage this sweater.”

“It  _ is _ cashmere,” admitted Rey, and helped him out of everything: coat, scarf, sweater, shirt, shoes, pants, and boxer-briefs, leaving him imposingly naked on the carpet in the living room, where he curled on his side into a ball, shivering. “I’ll put it in the bedroom. We still have five minutes until the moon comes up.”

“Don’t leave,” he begged, his voice breaking. “I can’t bear it alone.”

“Okay. Deep breaths.” Rey began to worry slightly as she tossed the clothes onto the couch: the thinnest slice of silver light was rising over the Park below, and Solovei, his back to the window, sucked in a breath as the moon touched the rim of the world. “Solovei—”

He let out a cry and his body twisted sideways, began to grow, began to transform. Rey belatedly realized she’d never seen him change back to human, and now watched, pinned with horror, as his knees bent awkwardly, as the reddish markings on his body reappeared, as the fur grew back, the talons extended. The moon continued its slow rise, and Solovei howled in pain, sprawling out on the rug, his size slowly increasing as he writhed. Rey stepped back a healthy distance and watched, shocked, until the moon’s bottom half had finally cleared the trees outside and he lay still, his back rising and falling in a slow, even shudder. 

“Vien?” she whispered. He raised his head in a sharp, quick movement, and  _ growled  _ at her, growled like an animal. His eyes gleamed red in the light from the foyer, and she felt her heartbeat quicken in terror. Remembering how he’d needed a moment to collect his thoughts after he’d become a human again, Rey ignored the warning bells going off in her mind and inched closer. “Vienijamin,” she tried again. “You’re Vienijamin Solovei. I’m your wife. I’m Rey Keyner— well, I’m Rey Solovei now, but—”

_ “ Rey _ ,” he growled, low and deep. One clawed hand stretched out toward her, pulling his weight along the carpet: he was crawling to her. 

“Where— where does it hurt?” she asked, trying to stay still and not run from him.

“Everywhere,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please. Rey.”

She stepped toward him, into that familiar radiating body heat she’d missed, and he wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling into her hair as he cradled her and breathed. “You’re going to be okay,” she told him. “Moon came up, you changed, moon’ll set and you’ll change back. Stop messing with witches in Central Park.”

He grumbled, low and deep. “Mmm. No, she was right: I have things to consider.”

“Can you… do the glamour thing again?” she asked, cheek pressed to his soft, thick ruff. 

“Hm.” Solovei tensed beneath her, but nothing happened. “Ah. No, or I have forgotten how. Strange.” 

“Your knees okay?”

“Bearable, now. Have you always been so small?”

“Shut up,” she said, grinning. “It’s not my fault you’re twice my size again.”

“Ah. And you’ll no doubt wish to examine me fully, to ensure all parts are accounted for.” Was it her imagination, or did he sound almost… eager? 

When was the last time they’d—

Oh. 

“Yes. Of course.” Rey tried to disguise her flustered emotions by ducking her head and reaching for his right hand, the talons there jet-black and gleaming. “Let’s see. Hand. Five fingers. Very good. Wrist. Forearm. Elbow.” The fur on his arms was soft, thick as midnight. “Upper… arm. Shoulder. All okay there.”

“And the other side?” he whispered, very still. Those golden eyes were dilated, the pupils threatening to engulf the irises.

“Hmm.” Rey shifted her weight so she was sitting on his massive thighs and repeated her motions, checking every appendage and muscle and patch of fur. “Yep. All here. Looks good. I’ll check and make sure you’re not missing any toes.”

“Ah,” he said, and leaned back slightly as she shuffled off his thighs and pretended to examine his legs, right and left, from foot to hip, making sure she touched him everywhere. By the time she reached his left thigh, his breath was coming in soft little pants and the thatch of thick dark hair between his legs was parting, making way for something she remembered  _ very _ well: a large, dark red object, wet at the head, starting to poke out, to expand, to fill. “Rey. I—”

“I’m sorry you’ve felt like you couldn’t ask me for this,” she whispered, taking his hand and guiding it between her legs. He was warm, even through her wool pants, and she wished she could make her clothes disappear. “You can ask me. Anytime.”

“I didn’t want to impose,” he muttered, his hand flexing at the crux of her body. “Or— or make you feel guilty for refusing.”

“I won’t feel guilty,” Rey told him, and kissed him firmly. “Ever. We just have to, um, communicate better.”

“Indeed,” Solovei said, sounding strained. “So I will ask plainly: do I have your permission to tear your clothes off of you,  _ inima mea? _ ”

She shivered. “Yes.”

With a swipe of the razorlike claws, the clothes she wore were in tatters: Rey reminded herself to buy new ones as soon as possible. He shoved the ragged remains aside and pulled her close into his lap, his cock rubbing hard and hot between her belly and his abdomen as he groaned. “So small. Heaven above: how did you take me the first time?”

“I can take anything,” she told him, and gyrated her hips a little as he tore her underwear off her and moaned into her hair. “Please, Vien. I just, I want—”

“I know what you want,” Solovei growled, low in his throat: it made her neck prickle with danger. “I smell it. Shall I chase you to the bedroom, then? Or have you here?”

“Oh, my  _ god _ ,” Rey spluttered, heat chasing every pore of her skin. “Bed. I— you have to catch me. Don’t, don’t fucking break anything, though, this place was so expensive—”

“I’ll take care,” he purred, and let her go, hunger in his eyes as she struggled to her feet and tossed her hair over one shoulder. “You look delicious.  _ Run _ , little one.” 

Well, Rey didn’t need to be told twice. She bolted for the bedroom door, giggling, and Solovei must have heaved himself up in record speed, because she heard a thump and a scrape and then she was being tackled onto the bed in a flying leap, gasping as she landed unharmed on the mattress and Solovei rolled atop her, caging her in. “Not fair,” she panted, struggling as he devoured her throat and chest with kisses. “S-Solovei.” HIs lips closed on her nipple and sucked, and she yelped, shivering. “Ah!”

“Shh,” he whispered, nosing down toward the other breast and licking at it. “I forgot how good you smell. I miss it, sometimes.”

“You s-smell good, too,” she offered weakly, trapped under two hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle and fur. And he did: like pine forests and musk, cedar and twilight. “Okay. How are we going to—”

Solovei lifted her hips easily and spread her legs, then shuffled down, settling her thighs over his huge shoulders. “I’ll ready you,” he said quietly, and Rey moaned as his mouth descended onto her, his tongue licking broad, even strokes across her swollen clit, his clawed hand spread out across her belly to pin her in place. 

Jolts of pleasure like electric shocks darted through her thighs, her belly, everywhere as she shivered beneath his mouth. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, Solovei th-thats, that’s g-good, oh, ah, God, please—”

He didn’t stop or slow down, just kept gently, firmly working away at her until she hit her orgasm and went crashing down the other side, trembling as his grip loosened and he pulled away. “Let me see,” he murmured, kissing her shaking thighs. “Are you ready, darling? Are you soft and deep for me? Open? Wet?”

“Please,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. He hadn’t called her  _ darling _ in a month.  _ Who knew he’d be this bold? _ “Yes, please.”

“I can’t use my fingers, little firebrand,” he whispered, kissing her clit softly. “I would hurt you. Use your own. Show me. How much can you take?”

Shaking, Rey reached down and shoved in two of her own fingers, then three, then did her best to cram her pinky finger alongside the rest. “Can’t reach,” she panted, squirming. His cock looked massive compared to her measly little fingers. “Please, I want you. Please, Solovei.”

“Mm. Keep your fingers there, just so,” he said, and started in on her clit again, licking and sucking, kissing her there. Rey whimpered, trying to fuck herself on her own fingers, and found that having her clitoris  _ and _ the inside of her vagina stimulated at the same time was overwhelmingly nice: she curled her fingers, trying to find the G-spot, and was rewarded with a deep stab of pleasure rocketing through her from her pussy to her toes, and after  _ that— _

She came unexpectedly, shrieking out nonsense as hot liquid gushed out of her and soaked the bedspread, her hand, and Solovei’s face from forehead to chin.  _ What the fuck? Oh my god, I just squirted, I thought that was made up for porn! _ “Fuck! Fuck, I’m sorry, sorry, I’m so, I didn’t know, I—”

His tongue flicked out and licked his mouth clean as a black-clawed hand wiped his eyes. “Shh. No apologies. Why would you be sorry? Don’t be. Look: you’re as wet as the sea. Shh.” And he was right: she was squelching, open, sopping wet, and as he finally brought his cock up to fit into her, Rey almost cried: finally,  _ finally.  _ “It’s all right,” he whispered, and in a slow, thick slide of flesh on flesh, drove himself home. 

She reached up to him as he bottomed out against her, burying her hands in his pelt and pressing her face to his chest. “Don’t break me,” she whispered.

“Never,” he replied, sounding strained. “Ah. You are unbreakable.”

“I mean literally, just, just be careful—” His hips snapped against hers, and she groaned. “Vien, a little more gently, okay, you’re  _ big. _ ”

“Sorry. This?” Solovei thrust slowly, in and out, and she shuddered. “Better?”

Her toes were curling. “Yeah, yes, yes, that’s,  _ uh  _ that’s good. Just, just—” Rey held on tight and squeezed her eyes shut. “Fuck,” she whimpered. He was being careful, but every stroke still felt like it was splitting her open. “V-Vien, can you, can you come like this?”

“Yes,” he said through his teeth, and shifted his weight, pushing her up against the headboard so that she was pinned there by his cock, his hands holding her steady. The thick mahogany creaked. Solovei settled himself and let out a heavy breath, his cheeks puffing out slightly, before he set his jaw and began to slowly, smoothly fuck into her, his hips relentless in their rhythm. 

Rey braced herself against the headboard and shrieked, unable to do anything but take and take and take as he moved. “Vien— V-ah, ah, ah ah ah fuck fuck  _ fuck _ —”

He buried his face in her hair and she heard him gasping, “Mine, my wife,  _ my _ wife, Rey, beloved, my sweetheart, my—” The litany of words stopped abruptly, and his hips pounded hard and deep— only for a moment, and Rey hardly felt it, before he buried himself to the hilt and his body’s movements became erratic and soft, his words dissolving into an incoherent cry. She felt him throbbing like a heartbeat inside her, warm and wet and pulsing, and clung to him, panting and wrung out, as he slowly, painfully withdrew and collapsed on the bed, pulling her to his chest and curling his arms around her body. 

A deep, satisfying ache was beating somewhere in her body. “Mm,” she mumbled, snuggling into his thick, soft ruff. 

“You’re all right?” he asked, sounding worn out.

“Totally fine. Not bleeding. Nothing damaged. So, you’re gonna tell me when you want to bang from now on, right?”

“Yes,” Solovei muttered, sounding a little embarrassed.

“Were you afraid I’d say no?”

“It is my experience,” he said very primly, rolling to his side and looking down at her, “that women on the whole, bar the exceptions, do not have as high of a drive for— marital activities— as men, generally speaking. And—perhaps I was afraid that if you denied it, then— then it would mean you wished to have a marriage more under the terms of your original desire. Sexless.”

“Vien. That’s why you have to  _ talk _ to me,” she said, closing her eyes and trying really hard not to laugh at him. “Why would I ever want a loveless marriage with you?”

“I don’t know. Because I’m— not— I’m old. And tired. And you are young and full of life and joy, and beauty.”

“Do you think you’re ugly?” demanded Rey, propping her chin up on her fist to glare at her husband, who wouldn’t meet her gaze with his gold, inhuman eyes. “Do you?”

“I have a mirror,” he said miserably.

“You’re not ugly. Not to me, and not to anyone. Okay?” She kissed his nose, and he flushed, ducking his head. “Ah-ah. Nope, you’re not escaping. Come here. More kissing.”

“You’ve always been kind to me,” he muttered as she kissed his cheeks and chin and forehead. “Rey—”

“I don’t want a sexless marriage. I want a very sex-full marriage. That’s not a word, but you get me. Even if I’m not in the mood sometimes, that doesn’t mean I don’t want you in general. Okay?” She pressed her lips to his as gently as she could, and he sighed deeply, kissing her back at last, yielding to her and melting back down into the bed as she stroked her fingers through his hair. 

“Okay,” he whispered, eyes half-closed as she pulled away. 

“Don’t fall asleep. We only have until, ah, let me see—” Rey rolled over and checked her phone— “four in the morning.”

“For what?” he asked, one eye opening.

She let a grin spread over her face. “I only have a couple hours left with you like this, and if you think I’m letting it go to waste then you can think again.”

“I’m going to find that witch and send her a Christmas present,” said Solovei, pulling her back down onto his lap. “Just as soon as I can manage. I promise. I’ll do it.” His mouth found hers, and she moaned: he felt so good and solid and comforting, huge beneath her. “I will. Oh, _God_.”

* * *

Rose Tico was having the weirdest night of her fucking life. 

First Finn had seen Huc catch her from falling and gotten a little weird about it, which didn’t make sense because he wasn’t supposed to  _ care  _ anymore about who she felt like flirting with or who flirted with her, and he’d had a weird conversation with Poe, who had rubbed his temples a lot and used his hands to enunciate his words. After that, they’d all gone for more hot chocolate, except Finn had gotten his with alcohol, and started crying halfway back to the apartment about how it was killing him to see Rose “moving on” so fast (fast?  _ Fast? _ They’d broken up on Halloween and it was  _ almost Christmas _ ) and that had made everything extremely fucking awkward, especially because Huc looked like he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do and neither did Poe. 

“I thought you were seeing someone!” Rose had protested. “That activist from the Green Party—”

“Jannah? You thought I was seeing Jannah?” Finn had demanded. “She’s like my  _ sister, _ we’re just friends, we went on a date  _ once—” _

“How was I supposed to know the date didn’t work out? You don’t talk to me anym—”

“Have you not  _ seen _ my Instagram? Jesus, Rose! If I was dating her I’d be posting, like—”

“Why don’t we all take a breath and just calm down,” Poe had suggested, shooting worried looks between his friends. 

Rose was on a roll, though, and only God himself could shut her up. “You know, if you talked to me like a human being once in a while instead of making me Indiana Jones it through your fucking social media, maybe you wouldn’t be single.”

Poe had visibly winced, and Finn had stared at her with huge dark eyes before bursting into tears and staggering off down the street. “Oh, my God,” Rose said, tears flooding her own eyes. “No, oh my God I didn’t mean it, Finn, wait—”

“I’ll handle it, it’s fine, don’t worry, just— fuck,” Poe had said wildly, turning his head around like an owl. “Shit, maybe you shouldn’t come back to the apartment tonight.”

“Tell him I’m sorry, please, please just tell him I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Rose had cried, feeling like shit as Huc had taken her gently by the arm. “Oh, God, I’m a horrible person.”

“I’ll take her to the Solovei flat. Don’t worry. And I’ll text you when we arrive, so you know she’s safe,” Huc said crisply to Poe, who nodded, half-distracted. 

“He’ll be okay. Honestly, you’re right, though, so don’t feel— Hey! Finn, buddy, wait!” He’d run off down the street, and she’d cried all the way to the intersection, where Huc had handed her a handkerchief and said nothing as he’d escorted her across the street and into the building at 988 Fifth. 

He’d taken her up into the dark penthouse, taken her coat, led her up a back staircase and right into a cozy little bedroom that was right on the top floor terrace overlooking the city, and now she just sat in an armchair in the corner sniffling into his hankie. 

“I guess you probably think I’m awful,” she said thickly, blowing her nose. 

“Mm. Not at all. I’ve seen far worse behavior from far crueler people.” He was methodically making a drink, his crisp sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and Rose tried to tear her eyes away from that firm expanse of well-muscled arm, dusted with coppery hair. “I don’t think you or Mr. Iji are bad people, Miss Tico. Or Mr. Dameron, for that matter. Would you like something to drink?”

“Just water,” said Rose, sniffing. “Thanks.” She liked how formal he was. It made her think,  _ hey, if I decide I want to sleep on the sofa or something, he won’t be a dick about it.  _ “God. I wanted today to be fun, too.”

“I found it quite enjoyable.” He handed her a glass of water and leaned against the wall, sipping his barely-alcoholic gin and tonic. “I have not often found cause to enjoy myself with friends in the past… several years of working for the Conte. It was a happy excursion.”

“Oh. Good.” She gulped at the cold water. “Must be a weird life, huh? No… girlfriend or anything?” Then she thought about the immaculate suits and backtracked. “B-boyfriend? I don’t want to assume—”

“Heavens,” he said, smiling lightly. “No, neither for many years. I simply don't have a lifestyle that can accommodate a long-term partner  _ and _ my work.”

“Yeah? My sister’s kind of like that. Though she did just get engaged, so. I mean. Who knows, right?” Rose tried to sip more water.  _ God, don’t be so obvious, men don’t like that.  _ “Is there a shower I can use? I’m just, uh, really cold and gross right now. I don’t have any clothes, but…”

Huc immediately nodded. “Of course there is. Use mine. I would have put you in the downstairs guest room, but it isn’t made up, and at any rate I think the Contesa and Conte would like privacy tonight. There are some clean clothes in the bathroom already. Help yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Rose, smiling as she stood up. “Thanks. I’ll be out in a second.”

The bathroom was spotless and the clothes turned out to be navy silk pants and a soft gray T-shirt. Rose dried her hair and threw on the clothes, then padded back out barefoot into the bedroom. Huc had somehow changed in the fifteen minutes it had taken her to shower, and was now in black pajamas under what looked like an old-fashioned dressing gown and busily turning down the bed. He stopped when he saw her come in and blinked for a moment. “Ah. Hello. You may sleep here, of course. I’ll make my way down and sleep in the spare bedroom.”

“I don’t want to kick you out of your own room,” Rose protested. 

Those fucking  _ eyes _ of his! Green and pale and clear like nothing she’d ever seen before: piercing and warm all at the same time. “Miss Tico, I must insist. You are a guest here. I will gladly find somewhere else to sleep. The last thing I would want is for you to feel uncomfortable.”

_Oh, God, please tell me he’s not one of those Nice Guys who acts like this to get into women’s pants and then turns into a dick when she says no._ She might as well call him on his bluff, though: if he was, he’d get all huffy when she accepted the offer. But those cheekbones, that full mouth… “I… see. Okay. That’s— thank you. Um, good night.”

He nodded briskly and headed to the door without even a hint of disappointment in his wake. “If you need anything, I shall be upstairs. Good night, Miss Tico.”

The door shut, and Rose stood there, which brought her back to her original thought: this was the weirdest night of her fucking life.  _ Why is he so fucking RESPECTFUL? _ She paced for a minute, staring at the walls and the windows. Maybe it was a test of some kind, though what she was supposed to do now she wasn’t sure. “You’re being stupid,” she said aloud to the windows, cringing at herself. “He’s  _ staff,  _ like, the butler or whatever and he’s being professional and nice to you. Nothing more.”

_ I’ll just go to bed. Yeah. Just. Bed. And try to get some sleep.  _

Except sleep wouldn’t come, no matter how much she cuddled up and shut her eyes and tried to count sheep. The bed was thick and soft, the sheets the highest thread count she’d ever felt, and still she couldn’t sleep. The minutes ticked on, and on, and finally when the digital clock on his nightstand read 11:30 PM Rose slipped out of bed, shuffling on his slippers. “He said to find him if I needed anything,” she whispered to her dim reflection in the window as she tiptoed to the door. “Maybe he has— I don’t know. Valium or something. Or, like, hot cocoa.”

She took the stairs down into the dining room. The whole apartment was quiet, but over from the corner that opened into the kitchen and living area, she heard a low, long growl that sounded— well, it sounded like Rey’s count— Conte— Solovei, but much deeper and weirdly animalistic, like… a dog. Or a lion. Rose inched away, her face on fire: clearly someone was getting freaky and Rose had no interest in interrupting that.  _ Where’s the other bedroom? _ A door to her immediate right was closed, but she wasn’t sure if that was the bedroom, or if it was a broom closet. 

Another low snarl came floating out of the distant dark, and Rose gulped, backing up and trying to get the knob open. Something was breathing, harsh and low in the dark, and it sounded  _ close, _ really close to the kitchen. Was that a moving shape, or were her eyes playing tricks on her in the dark? “Fuck,” she breathed, trying to twist the knob, her hands shaking so badly she couldn’t get it to work. If it was a broom closet, so be it: she’d hide inside—

Something moved in the dark of the far-off living area, past the shadows of the kitchen, and two bright red, glowing pupils stared directly at her. Rose let out a scream, full-throated and bloodcurdling, and that was when the door behind her opened and she fell backward into a pair of arms, where she was swiftly pulled in, the door shut tight behind her, and set down on something soft. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. A light flicked on, warm and gentle, and there was Huc, his coppery hair mussed and his green eyes wide with concern as he stared at her. “Miss Tico?” he asked.

“Oh, my god,” she babbled, feeling like she might throw up. “There was. There was something  _ huge  _ out there, out in the, the dining room I think, or, or— I don’t know. Red eyes!  _ Red eyes. _ ”

Huc looked bewildered. “Is it possible you saw a low-flying… helicopter, and the lights confused you?”

“No! I know what I saw, it was huge and growling and it  _ looked _ at me!” Rose insisted, on the verge of tears. “Please, Huc, can’t you go and just— just look? It scared the shit out of me!”

“I’ll investigate,” he said quietly, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. “Stay here, Miss Tico. I’ll be back in a moment.” Huc left, his pajama-clad back disappearing through the door, and he closed it behind him, leaving Rose to shiver her way out of a low-level panic attack while she stared around at the guest room. 

He’d been right, she thought absently as she looked at the king-size bed. It definitely wasn’t ready for guests, made up quickly with a fitted sheet and a large blanket, a single pillow in a case, and a few empty suitcases stacked by the side facing the window.  _ What was that thing, though? _ Rose tried to calm down. Maybe it was a helicopter, like he’d said, or reflections or something. It was hard to make things out in the dark.  _ Your imagination is running wild, Rose. Chill. Deep breaths.  _

The door opened, and she jumped, startled, as Huc came in, looking very weird. “Miss, ah, Tico. Well. I will not insult your intelligence by lying to you.”

“Huh?” she said, taken aback. Whatever she’d expected him to say when he came back in, this wasn’t it.

“The Conte was in the living room. It was he you saw. He and the Contesa are— having a romp.”

“Solovei has glowing red eyes?” Rose asked, disbelieving. 

Huc really looked like he might pass out, he was so pale. “Not… ordinarily. He used to, however, until very recently. Apparently there was an incident with some sort of herb-woman in the Park today that changed him back to his former state. Only for tonight, mind you. He is sorry for frightening you, and did not realize you were here. I have made my apologies.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Rose, sliding off the bed to the floor. Her feet felt numb. “Hold on. But the thing I saw was huge and had, like... _ fur. _ You’re telling me he was—he looked like— he—”

“‘ _ There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ _ ,” Huc quoted. “You will not be harmed, which I assume is your chief concern.”

“You can’t just tell me my best friend is married to a dude who used to be a giant  _ monster _ and expect that all I care about is my own neck,” Rose said. Her mouth felt weird, like she couldn’t really get words out.  _ Oh, my god, am I dissociating? No, I don’t think I am. I’m still here, right? _ “Can you please. Pinch me or slap me or something.”

“What?” he said, startled.

“Flick me in the head or something! Snap me out of it!”

Huc swallowed, but walked over and patted at her cheeks firmly. “Better?”

“A little.” His hands actually felt really nice, and she sat for a second as they dropped away. “Wait, hold on. Hold  _ on. _ You said— oh, my god, it’s all coming together. Pale, super good looking, said you’ve worked for him for a  _ loooong _ time— are you, like, a vampire?”

“You—you think I’m good looking?” he managed, looking stunned.

“Answer the question!”

“I’m not a vampire, Miss Tico. I… am like the Conte. I suppose we both defy categorization. I have— I—” He sat down on the floor in front of her, looking sick, with two spots of pink high on his cheeks. “If you must know, I’ve lived a good three-quarters of a millennia on this earth. I began my employment with the Conte in 1758.”

Her head was spinning wildly. “Seventeen. Like. With a one and a seven?”  _ This cannot be happening to me. _

“Yes, Miss Tico.” Huc really did look like he was going to throw up. “I beg your pardon for the deception. I did not want you to find out like this: frightened in the middle of the night. I… would have preferred, I think, that you not know. At all.”

Rose grabbed the blanket like it was a life preserver. “No, no, no. Hold on. You’re…  _ immortal?” _

“As was the Conte, before— before Miss Keyner,” Huc said thinly.

“But that’s… that’s  _ awesome. _ Why didn’t Rey tell me?”

“Awe—awesome? I fail to see what about this is awe-inspiring, Miss Tico. I have concealed my true nature from y—”

She dropped the blanket and got up on her heels. “Are you kidding? This is the coolest thing that’s happened to me since that bodega cat ran into an alley behind the Myrtle Street Duane Reade with a whole slice of pizza in her mouth. Holy shit! So you— you’re five hundred years old?”

“Seven hundred and thirty-two,” he said, after a shocked silence. “Miss Tico, I—”

“So you— you, like, you must have lived through  _ everything. _ What was the French Revolution like? No, no, what was the medieval—what—” Nothing could come to her mouth fast enough, all the questions she had and wanted answered. “What’s your favorite time period you’ve ever been in?”

He gaped for a moment, his green eyes shining oddly, then shut his mouth. “This one,” he said quietly, his mouth tight with determination. “So far. Because you are in it.”

Rose felt heat rush her body from head to toe.  _ Oh, fuck. He likes me. Like, likes me.  _ “Huh,” she said, sounding more strangled than she meant to.

“I—I should not have spoken so boldly,” he said quickly, a flush staining him from throat to hairline, and she really,  _ really  _ wanted to rip off those silk pajamas and see how far down the color could go. “I beg you. Forget I spoke in such an unprofessional manner. Your expression says it all— you are shocked by my words and clearly do not return my affections, and why would you?”

“Huc—”

“No, no. Say nothing more. Please. You are a friend of the Contesa, and I should have known better than to— no.”

Rose spluttered. “But, Huc—”

“Please, Miss Tico. I will not embarrass you further. I will escort you back to your—”

Clearly, words were not going to work. Rose closed the distance in a quick lunge and grabbed him by his silk lapels, tugging him in close and kissing him as hard as she could on the mouth. Huc made a startled sound, frozen in her hands, but as she worked him over with her lips and tongue, he half-melted, shuddering into her, bringing his hands up to cup her cheeks. When she pulled away, his mouth was reddened and damp. “Your affections are  _ fine, _ ” she said firmly, letting her hands fall down to his chest. Under the silk, he was firm and well-sculpted. “They’re— returned. Very returned.”

“Oh,” said Huc, sounding drunk. “Ah. Uh. Are they? Very— very good.”

Rose tried very hard to ignore the pounding heat between her legs. “I don’t— I don’t know what, um, what your ideas are on things like… I don’t know, premarital sex or whatever— the only metric I really have to judge is, like, Twilight. But if you’re— if you’re down, I’m down.”

Huc tried to suppress his laugh, but failed. “Oh, heaven forbid. No, Miss Tico. I lived through the Roaring Twenties. I assure you, there are no personal beliefs on my end regarding that sort of behavior.”

“Oh. Good. I just— I don’t know if it’s because you talk so formally, or— I just thought. Well. You know.” She was blushing, she knew it, and couldn’t help it.

“Ah, I see. No. I will endeavor— try to speak less formally, then, if that makes you more comfortable.” Nothing in his green eyes spoke of anything less than sincere hope, and it made Rose feel  _ good: _ safe, wanted, cherished. “But you must consider—you will not regret this, later on?”

“Are you kidding? No way.”

“It is Mr. Iji who I am thinking of,” he said softly, and Rose’s excitement and turned-on-ness instantly went  _ poof, _ as if she’d been doused in cold water. “I do not wish to be the cause of strife between you, should the relationship be amended.”

“I—I don’t think it’s going to be,” said Rose dully, fighting sudden tears. “I think— I think he might be struggling a little with his identity, and— possibly his sexual orientation? I don’t know. When I first met him I thought he had a thing for Rey, and they both were like ‘what, noooo, no way’ and then I thought he had a thing for Poe, and they were like ‘bro that’s crazy’ and  _ now _ he’s broken up with me for the fifth time and I  _ thought _ he was with Jannah but I guess they’re just friends? And now he’s home. With Poe. And I— I don’t know. No, I think I’m a horrible judge of who Finn likes. But I’m also not stupid. I think Poe and Finn are— have had feelings for each other for a while. And I—I just want to do something for  _ me, _ you know, that  _ I _ want to do with someone who feels a type of way about me that I don’t feel like, maybe, Finn does. If that, um. Makes sense.”

“Perfect sense,” said Huc, reaching up and wiping a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “As long as you have no regrets, I won’t, either.”

“You’re not gonna offer to bite me and give me immortality?” she joked, trying to smile at him. What man wanted to sleep with a crying woman?

“It doesn’t work like that, Miss Tico,” he said, his mouth twisting in a kind of bitter smile. “If it did, I would have offered already.”

“Romantic,” she said, letting her eyes close as he came in and kissed her cheek. He smelled like mint and vetiver, like being alive. “You can call me Rose, you know.”

“Rose,” he said quietly, like he was testing it on his tongue. “Then you, Rose, must call me Armanas.”

“Armanas,” she repeated, and his eyes lit up a little, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t even know you had another name beside Huc. Armanas Huc?”

“A testament to my professionalism. And yet I find myself wishing to be extremely unprofessional in all matters regarding you, Miss— Rose.” Huc—, no, Armanas’s voice had dropped an octave, into a soft, purring rumble that sent Rose into thoughts of romance novels with bare-chested men and women in white sheets falling across their chests. “Please. Will you allow me that?”

“Yes,” she breathed, her heart pounding. “Yes, Armanas. I will.”

* * *

Rey woke. Someone was moving in their bedroom, and as she raised herself up on one arm she saw that it was her husband: huge, clawed, and watching at the window, looking at the sky. Everything between her legs ached and stung, and she winced: that had  _ got _ to be some minor tearing going on down there. Maybe she could send Huc off to get some Vagisil and Neosporin in the morning.  _ I can’t believe I thought taking that thing from behind again was a good idea. Horny Me, what were you thinking? _

“The moon is setting,” he said quietly, without turning around. “You should sleep.”

“Come to bed,” she said, reaching her arm out to him. 

“I would prefer you not see this. If it is anything like the first transformation, I will be in pain.” He turned to look at her. “I only have minutes left. I— I am afraid.”

“Of what?” She slid out, gingerly trying to not put pressure on her backside, and sat down by him on the carpet, shivering in the cold air. 

“That— that it will all have been a dream, that I will never be a man again.” Solovei looked pensive in the dim glow from the city below them. The red markings on his face were subdued, drowned in the fluorescent light. “That I will remain like this to the ending of the world.”

Rey leaned in and kissed his cheek. “If you do, you’re not getting rid of me,” she promised, and buried her fingers into his soft ruff, inhaling the scent of him: musky, woodsy, dark. “I’m staying. I’d stay either way. You know that.”

He sighed and turned his head down, tucking her against his chest. “Dear heart. Brave little one. You’re hurt, and hiding it from me.”

“It’s not bad,” she protested, ignoring the burning between her thighs. “Just some small tears. Nothing a couple days of rest won’t fix.”

He twitched a little, and a shadow of pain crossed his face. “I think it is beginning. You ought to stay back, back on the bed—” He fell suddenly, gasping, and Rey hurried over and lifted his head into her lap, stroking his hair as he let out a whimper like a kicked dog and convulsed. 

“I’m not leaving you. I’m here this time, I’m not running off.”

“Rey,” he sobbed, and then— she could smell it, the smell of magic, of change: like burnt ozone, fire, pine. It curled off him like a perfume, singing the inside of her nose, and under her hands she could feel… his  _ skin _ was peeling. Like a bad tattoo, like the kind of skin that peeled after a sunburn, crackly and fragile, floating away. “Vien, I’m here,” she repeated, trying to keep hold of him as he howled and shook and writhed in agony. “I have you. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Just a few more minutes.”

He shuddered, and the fur fell away and vanished in her hands— one moment she was holding fluffy locks and the next she just wasn’t. “Rey,” he wailed, reaching up and gripping her arm with still-clawed hands— before the claws disappeared, shedding like a cat’s. “Rey, don’t go.”

“Not going, staying here. I’m here. I’m staging right—”

He gave a final, horrible thrashing movement like a seizure, and everything got very quiet. She looked up through the window. Not a speck of moonlight was left on the ground below, and the clock at her bed read 4:21 AM. He was breathing, ragged and sharp like a man pulled from the ocean, in her lap. “Vien, are you with me?”

There was no answer for a second. Then, he stirred, and slowly, slowly sat up with a low moan.

“I’ll get the light,” she said, and wobbled over to his nightstand, twisting the light on. “You’re okay? Hopefully you never have to—” She turned, her words snarling up in her throat, and choked: the man on her bedroom floor was— wasn’t—  _ was _ Solovei, but Solovei… Solovei more like she’d first seen him, Solovei without any scars: blinking at her, confused in the warm yellow light. His scars were gone— everywhere, there was only smooth skin, fresh and young, and the circles under his eyes had vanished. Even the lines around his mouth and eyes had disappeared, leaving a man who could have been thirty years old, in his prime, young and strong and full of life. “Solovei?” she gasped.

He looked down at himself, his hands trailing up his own body delicately, carefully, as if he was afraid he’d break if pressed. “I… am I dreaming?”

“No,” she said, not sure if she was dreaming herself. “You’re… you… you look…”

“No scars,” he said, bewildered as he twisted to look down at his back. His fingers, shaking, moved down his cheek, feeling for the scar that had once carved a line down his face, and felt only smooth skin there, beauty marks and all. “No— nothing.”

Rey’s heart felt like it might burst. “I’ll miss them,” she said quietly, crossing over and kneeling in front of him to take his cheek in her hand. He sighed and turned his nose into her palm, eyes closing. “But you look— you look so young.”

“Does it please you?” he asked, eyes opening and darting up to hers. 

“Yes. You— I don’t care how you look, I told you that. No matter what. I’m here. You can’t get rid of me.” She kissed him gently, and he sighed, wrapping his arms around her naked waist and pulling her close. “Even if I do have to take a break from sex for a couple of days.”

Solovei laughed into her throat. “I can think of many things we can do that do not involve putting undue stress on one particular part of you,  _ inima mea.” _

“Oh, can you?” she teased, running her hands through his soft hair. “Good. Ugh.” She shifted her weight in his lap. “I should— do you think Huc is up? I need to get some medication or something. Maybe he can run out to a drugstore for me.”

“He likely didn’t sleep much last night, what with the noise,” said Solovei, eyes twinkling. 

Rey stood up, blushing. “Stop! Ugh. I’ll go see if he’s up yet and ask.”

“Ah, wait a—” said Solovei, looking slightly taken aback. “I think—”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Rey told him, throwing on a robe. “Look, I’ll wear a robe. It’s not like he’s not already seen me naked. I’ll be back in a second.”

“Rey—”

She hurried out, ignoring her husband’s call, and headed over to the kitchen, then the dining room. Huc’s door was ajar, which always meant that he was awake, and probably doing something like brushing Solovei’s suits. “Huc?” she called, pushing it open. “Can y—” 

Her words died in her throat as a horrible sound threatened to escape her. Huc was completely naked, and on top of him was Rose,  _ also _ totally naked, and while it wasn’t like she’d never seen Rose naked before, she’d definitely never walked in on her while she was actively having sex. Rey froze like a rabbit as Rose’s eyes snapped over to hers, a deep flush on her cheeks and her black hair stuck to her forehead. “Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” she squeaked.

Huc jerked his face away from Rose like it was an effort to stop concentrating on her. “Contesa,” he croaked, and rolled over atop Rose to shield her, lifting the sheet to conceal where they were very,  _ very _ firmly stuck together at the hips. “I apologize for leaving the door open. Did you need—”

“No! No, no, nothing, it can wait, oh my  _ god _ , uhhhh, have fun!” gasped Rey, and escaped, shutting the door behind her tightly and pressing her back to it. She didn’t know what was worse, seeing Huc completely nude or seeing her best friend having sex. Somehow, Huc being naked was more obscene than actual sex.    


Solovei came around the corner, dressed in a bathrobe and fighting a smile. “I did try to warn you,” he said.

“How— you knew she was in here? Fucking Huc? And you didn’t tell me?”

“We were occupied at the time.” He shrugged. “And besides, you said they were a cute couple.”

Rey covered her face with her hands as she met him in the kitchen, her feet cold on the floor. “I saw Huc’s  _ dick, _ man. I’m never going to be able to get that out of my head.”

Solovei’s face broke into a broad, crooked grin. “Then I will have to put your mind to other things. Come back to bed,  _ inima mea. _ ”

“As long as you’re careful,” she retorted, still hot in the face as they went back to the dark bedroom.

* * *

Rose muffled her— what was this, now, tenth or eleventh?— orgasm into the blanket, shaking violently with her toes curled up against the backs of Huc’s thighs.  _ This is the best fucking sex I’ve ever had in my life. Ever.  _ “Armanas—” she panted, shaking. Part of her brain was still stuck on the fact that Rey had just walked in on them, but it was a very, very small part. “I’m going to pass out if you don’t, if you—”

“Hush, darling,” he gasped, his face crushed into her neck. Whatever he was, he had insane stamina. “I’m sure you have one more left in you. Don’t you?”

“Please,” she begged, throwing her head back for air. “Oh, god, I can’t. I can’t.” He’d started by taking off her clothes, then fingering her, and while normally Rose didn’t get much out of fingering, he had known exactly what he was doing, and after she’d come the first time he’d eaten her out with enthusiasm until she’d come multiple times, and  _ finally _ he’d gotten his clothes off and gotten his dick into her and  _ now _ she felt like she was going to pass out if he didn’t hurry up and finish soon, because there was only so much pounding her bits could take. “I don’t, I can’t.” Sweat was getting into her eyes, and she was so fucking thirsty. 

“All right. All right. Shh.” He adjusted himself, panting a little, and moved her to her side, letting her lie down and relax while he worked into her from underneath. Rose felt him part her delicate, overused tissues and moaned, shuddering as he bottomed out again. “Tender,” he whispered, stilling for a moment and just letting her breathe as his hands traced her breasts, her sides, the thick curve of her ass. “I can feel it. Have I used you poorly, Rose?”

“N-no,” she panted, shaking her head. “It’s good, it’s just, it’s, it’s been hours and I’m so tired, I feel like my legs are gonna fall off.”

“Apologies,” he whispered. “Would you rather I finish on my own and let you sleep?”

“No, I want you to—” She bit her lip. “I have an IUD, you know. You can, I want you to come in me. Inside.”

Huc let out a high, thin sound and shut his eyes. “Then I will,” he whispered, bracing himself on the bed. “Don’t… don’t move. I won’t be long. I promise. Poor exhausted thing.”

Rose let out a little whine as he started to fuck her again, in short, sharp thrusts that scooted her a little across the bed with every movement. “Arm— Armanas, fuck,  _ fuck,  _ it’s good, it’s really—”

He was gasping, holding her steady, his red hair stuck to his forehead and temples and turned to a dark copper with sweat. “So pretty,” he choked out, gazing down at her. “My pretty Rose, wanting my— my—” His face twitched, as if he was trying to hold something back.

Rose gulped. Did he want to hear it again? “Give me your cum,” she croaked, trying to twist around and look at him. “I want it inside me, I want you inside me, I want you to cover me in it, just  _ come,  _ Armanas—”

A vein in his forehead was standing out, his mouth slack, and then he was coming apart, shaking, buried deep inside her as he flooded her with warm semen and almost drooled on her with the force of how hard he’d come. “Rose,” he gasped, his arms barely able to hold him up. “ _ Rose _ .” With a wrenching movement, he pulled out, his cock painting her hip with come, sticky and pale. “Oh, f-fuck,” he moaned, and she’d never heard him swear before. It was almost enough to get her turned on again. Or, would have been, if she hadn’t been wrung out to within an inch of her life. 

“I h-have to shower again,” she managed, when his breathing had returned to normal. 

“I will wash you. There is no need for you to get up. I’ll take care of you,” he said softly, inching off the bed with a dreamy, relaxed look in his eyes. “You just lie there for me, Rose.”

“Okay,” she mumbled, because not getting up was a great idea, according to her weak legs. Huc walked to the bathroom and she heard him running water. He came back with a wet washcloth and gently wiped her down, then used another one to wash the sweat off her aching, sore body. It felt wonderful, being cared for, and she let him wipe her clean and gently dress her back in her clothes, then tuck her into the bed before getting his own pajama pants back on and joining her. 

“We need not get up early,” he mumbled, his fingers resting lightly on her waist.

Rose was already almost asleep. “No,” she muttered, eyes shut tight. “Thanks for all this. Merry… early Christmas, or whatever. Mmm.”

Huc chuckled. “And to you, Rose.”

* * *

Nobody at 988 Fifth Avenue made eye contact the next morning at breakfast. Poe called Rey, sounding out of breath, to tell her he and Finn would catch up with everyone later that afternoon, which was fine with everyone involved, since nobody had gotten much sleep at all the night before.

“So,” Rey said to Rose finally, trying to look at the floor as Huc departed to track down Neosporin and Vagisil. “How was your night?”

“How was  _ yours _ ?” demanded Rose, blushing. “You didn’t tell me your husband could turn into a giant… thing.”

“That was a fluke,” said Rey primly. “One time thing. Obviously. Not gonna happen again.”

“Well, he looks great. Like he’s de-aged or something. Is that the one big secret plastic surgeons won’t tell you?”

“Rose, oh my  _ god _ ,” said Rey, covering her mouth with her hand in an effort to not laugh. “Huc looks great, too. I’ve never heard him whistle making coffee before.”

It was Rose’s turn to stifle giggles. “Okay, look. I had  _ no clue _ he could last for like four hours straight in bed, and I want to kind of die, but also? Yes.”

“So this’ll be a multiple time thing, huh?”

“I mean, I hope so. Unless you don’t want us hooking up in your house. Which, I mean, totally—”

“Uh,” said Rey, peering at her phone. “Hold that thought. What the fuck is  _ this? _ ”

On the screen was a selfie of Poe: Poe from the chin down to his thighs, easily identifiable by his mom’s wedding ring, which he wore on a chain around his neck and never took off, wearing tight gray boxer-briefs with a massive and very obvious erection poking through it, and the caption  _ Waiting for you, babe _ underneath. 

Rose stared at it, stunned. “What the  _ fuck _ — did he mean to send that to you?”

Rey opened her mouth, but the text bubble appeared, dots flashing, and then the word  _ Finn? _ popped up.

“Holy shit,” said Rey, eyes huge. “Okay, so did  _ all _ of us get laid last night?”

“I need more Bugles to get through this day,” said Rose firmly. “Like, a bag. A huge bag of Bugles.”

_ Shit! Sorry rey didn’t mean 2 send this to u!! _ read the very next message on Rey’s phone.  _ Ignore please!!! _

Rey tapped out,  _ it’s fine omg just be safe and have fun jesus christ you two _ before pressing send and tucking her phone into her pocket. “That makes two dudes I’ve seen more of than I ever wanted to see in my life in one twelve-hour period.”

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” said Rose sagely.

Rey snorted. “No, Christmas miracles are about the Hallmark Channel and Santa existing and remembering that the true meaning of Christmas isn’t about capitalism, which was invented to make people spend money to buy movies about the meaning of Christmas. Get out of here with that bullshit.”

“Buzzkill. Hey, Solovei! Want to go ice skating?”

“I would enjoy that,” said Solovei, coming out of the living room in his black sweater and pants, smiling. 

“You mean you’ll enjoy watching me fall on my ass,” Rey teased.

“I will enjoy anything you do, my dear, as long as we are together,” he whispered, and kissed her cheek. “But perhaps you two ought to recover a little today before we attempt that.”

“Oh, right,” said Rey, wincing as she sat on the sofa. “Okay, then cheesy movies it is. Who wants to watch  _ A Christmas Prince? _ ”

“Me!” crowed Rose. “Oh, you’ll love it, Solovei, it’s so corny but it’s so romantic.”

“Mm,” said Solovei, kissing Rey again on the nose. “Indeed. Then we shall watch it, but we must wait for Huc to return.”

“Yes, all together,” said Rey, smiling, and snuggled up to him, Rose cuddled up in blankets as the snow fell outside and New York below moved on and around them.


End file.
